DEC  0  1971 


BV  4020  .T53  1921 


Theological  study  today 


THEOLOGICAL  STUDY 
TODAY 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 


THE  BAKER  AND  TAYLOR  COMPANY 

NEW  TORE 

THE  CAMBRIDGE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON 

THE  MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 

TOKTO,  OSAKA,  KYOTO,  FUKUOKA,  SKKDAI 

THE  MISSION  BOOK  COMPANY 

EBANGHAI 


THEOLOGICAL   STUDY 
TODAY 


ADDRESSES   DELIVERED   at   the 

SEVF \  lY-FIFTH    ANNIVERSARY 

(7/M.1vlEADVILLE  THEOLOGICAL 

SCHOOL,  JUNE  1-3,  1920 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 


Copyright  192  i  By 
The  University  of  Chicago 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Published  June  1921 


Composed  and  Printed  By 

The  University  of  Chicago  Press 

Chicago,  Illinois,  U.S.A. 


FOREWORD 

The  addresses  which  follow  were  given  at  the 
seventy-fifth  anniversary  of  the  founding  of  the 
Meadville  Theological  School,  June  i,  2,  and  3,  1920. 
They  are  now  put  into  permanent  form  both  as  a 
record  of  this  anniversary  and  as  a  landmark  in  the 
history  of  theological  science  and  theological  teaching. 
The  School  was  founded  in  1844  to  train  ministers  for 
the  Unitarian  churches  of  the  West.  During  its  early 
years  it  was  also  used  as  a  ministerial  training-school 
by  the  churches  of  the  Christian  connection.  It  has 
played  a  not  insignificant  part  in  the  teaching  of 
theology  in  America,  in  spite  of  obstacles  which 
might  now  be  considered  insurmountable.  It  was 
for  years  without  endowment  and  without  a  library 
worthy  of  the  name.  Only  one  of  the  two  young 
professors  who  constituted  its  first  faculty  had  been 
settled  over  a  church.  It  was  located  in  a  small 
village  of  strong  Calvinistic  tendencies,  many  miles 
from  any  important  cultural  or  educational  center. 
The  nearest  Unitarian  church  was  one  hundred  and 
forty  miles  away.  The  minister  of  this  church,  who 
served  the  School  as  a  non-resident  professor  of  pas- 
toral care,  was  compelled  to  make  a  journey  of  forty 
miles  by  stage  at  the  end  of  a  hundred-mile  journey  by 
water.  Access  to  Meadville  from  the  south  meant  a 
stage  journey  of  one  hundred  miles  from  the  Ohio 
River. 

V 


vi  FOREWORD 

The  School  was  founded  in  an  era  of  theological 
controversy,  and  the  members  of  its  faculty  were 
debarred  from  the  fellowship  of  the  theological  world, 
with  the  single  exception  of  the  Divinity  School  of 
Harvard  University.  They  were  eligible  to  mem- 
bership in  no  theological  society.  The  standard  of 
admission  was  at  first  necessarily  low.  Applicants 
were  expected  to  know  something  about  English  gram- 
mar, geography,  arithmetic,  and  the  elementary 
principles  of  natural  philosophy;  but  even  this  mod- 
est requirement  was  not  insisted  on  from  men 
already  in  the  ministry. 

In  spite  of  these  obstacles  the  seventy-five  years 
of  the  School's  life  are  years  of  which  it  need  not  be 
ashamed.  Its  graduates  have  penetrated  to  every 
corner  of  the  United  States  and  Canada  where  there 
were  churches  which  they  were  eligible  to  serve,  or 
missionary  outposts  in  search  of  ministers  animated 
by  a  spirit  of  adventure.  They  have  acquitted 
themselves  with  distinction  in  positions  of  influence, 
and  they  have  not  been  ashamed  to  serve  in  lowly 
places.  No  better  service  was  ever  rendered  to  the 
cause  of  pure  religion  by  Meadville  graduates 
scattered  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  than 
is  being  rendered  at  the  present  time.  Never 
have  they  been  in  charge  of  more  important 
posts,  and  never  have  these  posts  been  more  effec- 
tively manned.  A  tree  is  known  by  its  fruits. 
Meadville  is  content  to  be  thus  known  and 
judged. 


FOREWORD  vii 

Why  is  it  that,  considering  the  crudity  of  the 
tools  with  which  the  School  was  for  many  years 
compelled  to  work,  its  output  has  been  of  so  high 
a  quality?  The  answer  is  threefold.  In  the  first 
place,  though  admission  to  the  School  was  at  first 
easy,  as  it  was  indeed  in  other  seminaries  of  three- 
quarters  of  a  century  ago,  the  classroom  standard  was 
exacting  and  the  erudition  of  its  professors  was,  con- 
sidering the  time  and  place,  amazing.  The  quaUty 
of  the  work  done  in  the  classroom  compared  favorably 
from  the  very  beginning  with  that  which  was  done 
in  the  most  highly  favored  institutions  of  the  East. 
In  the  second  place,  the  founders  of  the  School  were 
men  of  God.  Harm  Jan  Huidekoper,  coming  to 
Meadville  from  Holland  at  the  beginning  of  the 
last  century,  put  into  the  founding  of  the  School  the 
spirit  which  had  animated  his  life,  the  spirit  of 
devotion  to  the  living  God.  That  was  the  spirit 
which  animated  his  son.  Professor  Frederic  Huide- 
koper, and  the  first  president,  Rufus  Stebbins.  The 
teaching  of  the  School  was  infused  from  the  beginning 
with  an  atmosphere  of  manly  and  earnest  piety.  In 
the  third  place,  the  founders  of  the  School  were  men 
of  vision.  Though  they  believed  intensely  in  the 
conclusions  at  which  they  had  arrived,  they  believed 
even  more  strongly  that  theological  study  should  be 
prosecuted  in  the  freedom  of  the  truth.  This  proposi- 
tion was  written  at  the  beginning  into  the  charter  of 
the  School.  From  the  day  of  its  foundation  all  its 
privileges  were  open  to  students  of  good  character 


viii  FOREWORD 

and  high  ideals,  regardless  of  theological  opinions. 
And  thus  the  foundation  of  the  School  was  laid  not 
only  deep  but  broad. 

Some  of  the  views  which  were  set  forth  in  the 
classroom  concerning  the  Old  Testament  by  President 
Stebbins,  and  concerning  the  New  Testament  by 
Professor  Huidekoper,  have  been  outgrown  and 
rejected  even  in  strongholds  of  orthodoxy.  But  the 
high  standards  of  scholarship  and  the  fine  consecra- 
tion which  they  brought  to  their  tasks,  along  with 
the  clear  vision  demanding  devotion  to  the  truth  at 
the  expense,  if  necessary,  of  any  previous  formulation 
of  truth,  which  has  characterized  the  School  for 
seventy-five  years — these  constitute  its  distinctive 
quality  and  its  distinctive  contribution  to  theological 
education. 

By  means  of  increased  resources  the  opportunities 
of  the  School  have  been  greatly  expanded.  It  now 
possesses  an  adequate  faculty  and  a  large  and  growing 
library.  By  non-resident  lectureships  it  is  kept  in 
contact  with  the  outer  world  and  brought  into  touch 
with  modern  problems.  Admission  to  the  theological 
course  now  demands  previous  college  preparation. 
The  School  is  affiliated  for  a  quarter  of  the  year  with 
the  Divinity  School  of  the  University  of  Chicago  and 
is  taking  steps  to  erect  a  building  of  its  own  near  the 
gateway  of  that  University. 

No  longer  in  a  spirit  of  barren  and  unfruitful 
controversy,  or  in  a  spirit  of  voluntary  isolation  from 
the  other  institutions  which  are  training  ministers  of 


FOREWORD  ix 

religion  in  other  fellowships,  is  the  work  of  the  School 
to  be  carried  on.  It  is  significant  that  a  goodly 
number  of  such  institutions  were  represented  at  the 
seventy-fifth  anniversary  and  that  professors  from 
several  of  these  have  taken  part,  with  our  own 
faculty,  in  giving  the  addresses  printed  in  this  volume. 
All  this  is  a  foreshadowing  of  the  time  when  the 
intrusion  of  the  sectarian  spirit  into  theological 
teaching  will  become  a  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  when  the  pure  devotion  to  truth,  which  char- 
acterizes the  university  at  its  best,  will  characterize 
the  intellectual  processes  of  the  seminary  as  well. 

F.  C.  S. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I.  The  History  op  Religions i 

The  Historical  Study  of  Religions 
James  Bisselt  Pratt,   Ph.D.,   Professor   of 
Philosophy,  WilUams  College 

n.  The  Philosophy  OF  Religion 25 

Philosophic  Conceptions  on  Which  Further 

Religious  Progress  Depends 
George  Rowland  Dodson,  Ph.D.,  Associate 
Professor    of    Philosophy,    Washington 
University 

HI.  The  Old  Testament 53 

Old  Testament  Study  Today 

Henry  Preserved  Smith,  D.D.,  Professor  of 
Hebrew  and  the  Cognate  Languages,  and 
Librarian,  Union  Theological  Seminary 

IV.  The  New  Testament 75 

New  Testament  Study  Today 
Clayton  Raymond  Bowen,  Th.D.,  Frederic 
Henry  Hedge  Professor  of  New  Testa- 
ment Interpretation,  Meadville  Theologi- 
cal School 

V.  Church  History 106 

History  in  Theological  Education 
Ephraim  Emerton,  Ph.D.,  Winn  Professor  of 

Ecclesiastical  History,  Emeritus,  Harvard 

University 

xi 


xii  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

VI.  Systematic  Theology  .     .     .     .     .     .     .     131 

The  Modern  Theological  Method 
Francis  Albert  Christie,  D.D.,  James  Free- 
man Clarke  Professor  of  Church  History, 
Meadville  Theological  School 

VII.  Religious  Education 158 

Education  in  Worship 
Theodore  Gerald  Soares,  Ph.D.,  D.D.,  Pro- 
fessor of  Homiletics  and  Religious  Educa- 
tion and  Head  of  the  Department  of 
Practical  Theology,  Divinity  School, 
University  of  Chicago 

VIII.  Social  Ethics 183 

The  Equipment  of  the  Minister  as  a  Social 
Reformer 

Robert  James  Hutcheon,  A.M.,  Caleb  Brew- 
ster Hackley  Professor  of  Sociology, 
Ethics,  and  the  Philosophy  of  Religion, 
Meadville  Theological  School 

IX.  President's  Address 200 

The  Modern  Minister:    His  Training  and 

His  Task 
Franklin  Chester  Southworth,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
President  and  Professor  of  Practical  The- 
ology, Meadville  Theological  School 


THE  HISTORY  OF  RELIGIONS 


THE  HISTORICAL  STUDY  OF  RELIGIONS 

If  one  were  seeking  a  paradox,  it  might  be  said , 
with  some  approximation  to  truth,  that  the  intel- 
lectual Western  world  of  our  generation  has  redis- 
covered religion  almost  in  the  act  of  losing  it.  Of 
course  we  have  always  known  that  religion,  including 
even  the  non-Christian  religions,  has  had  a  great 
influence  upon  human  life  and  human  history. 
But  what  till  recently  we  have  somehow  missed  is 
the  fact  that  rehgion  is  one  of  the  most  fundamentally 
human  of  institutions;  that  it  is  not  merely  a  col- 
lection of  more  or  less  extraneous  and  avoidable 
beHefs,  superstitions,  and  rituahstic  acts,  but  is, 
rather,  a  plant  whose  roots  lie  deep  in  the  subsoil  of 
human  nature.  We  are  learning  also  that  this  is  true 
not  only  of  rehgion  as  such,  but,  in  a  less  degree,  of 
each  of  the  historical  religions;  that  each  of  them  is 
inextricably  intertwined  with  the  social  institutions, 
the  political  currents  and  crises,  even  the  geography, 
and  most  of  all  with  the  psychology  of  the  various 
peoples  who  have  developed  them  and  who  have 
been  developed  by  them.  This  new  realization  of 
the  essentially  human  nature  of  rehgion  and  of  its 
enormous  importance  in  the  individual  and  social 
life  has  in  our  day  given  to  the  study  of  the  history 


2  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

of  religions  a  new  impetus  and  a  new  direction. 
Correlatively  with  this  new  interest  in  the  history 
of  reHgions,  partly  as  cause  and  partly  as  effect,  we 
have  come  into  the  possession  of  an  enormous  amount 
of  new  material  for  our  study — an  amount  so  vast 
that  it  both  lures  and  inspires  the  student  and  at  the 
same  time  overwhelms  and  nearly  discourages  him 
by  its  sheer  immensity.  Leaving  out  of  account  the 
various  religious  ideas  and  practices  of  primitive 
peoples,  we  have  for  investigation  no  less  than  nine 
living  and  five  dead  religions,  concerning  all  but  two 
of  which  our  information,  though  not  so  great  as  one 
could  wish,  is  considerable  and  in  some  cases  massive. 
This  mass  of  information  pours  in  upon  the 
student  of  the  history  of  religions  from  the  traveler, 
the  missionary,  the  archaeologist,  the  philologist, 
the  historian,  the  geographer,  the  sociologist,  the 
psychologist,  and  must  be  worked  over,  sifted,  and 
co-ordinated.  In  this  great  and  confusing  work  it  is 
plainly  imperative  that  the  student  should  have  a 
clear  idea  of  what  he  means  by  religion,  and  what  the 
aim  of  the  history  of  religion  is  to  be.  And  though 
writers  on  this  subject  are  often  too  busy  to  formulate 
these  things  into  words,  and  when  they  do  so  often 
verbally  disagree,  their  practice  is  better  than  their 
theory,  and  they  will  be  found  to  have  pursued  a 
fairly  steady  and  consistent  course  in  co-operation 
with  each  other.  Judging,  then,  not  by  their  words 
but  by  their  deeds  and  their  results  we  may,  I  think, 
formulate  the  meaning  of  rehgion  which  the  majority 


THE  HISTORY  OF  RELIGIONS  3 

of  students  have  implicitly  accepted  or  taken  for 
granted  and  acted  upon  in  some  such  way  as  the 
following:  Religion  is  the  attitude  of  individuals  and 
societies  toward  the  Power  or  Powers  which  they 
conceive  as  having  ultimate  control  over  their  interests 
and  destinies.  If  we  tentatively  accept  this  defini- 
tion, we  may  add  that  the  aim  of  the  history  of  reli- 
gions is  to  find  out  what  men  have  believed  and  felt 
and  how  they  have  acted  in  relation  to  the  Deter- 
miner of  Destiny,  and  to  understand  why  they  have 
so  done. 

While  this  may  be  accepted  as  a  fair  statement 
of  the  aim  of  all  the  students  of  our  subject,  the 
methods  both  of  investigation  and  of  exposition  which 
they  make  use  of  are  by  no  means  so  easily  unified. 
The  particular  methods  employed  are  of  course 
numerous,  and  properly  so,  and  the  leading  ones 
will  engage  our  attention  shortly;  but  before  taking 
them  up  in  turn  I  wash  to  point  out  three  divergent 
general  ways  of  viewing  the  subject  and  attacking 
its  problems,  all  of  which  may  be  found  among 
contemporary  writers  and  among  which  it  seems 
to  be  desirable  that  the  student  should  make  a 
deliberate  choice.  The  first  of  these,  for  want  of 
a  better  term,  I  shall  call  the  Inspirational  way. 
You  all  recognize  what  I  mean.  The  Inspirational 
school  is  impatient  of  details,  uses  facts  merely  for 
illustration,  is  interested  only  in  the  ''larger  view," 
the  ''inner  meaning,"  the  "spiritual  message,"  of 
the  religion  under  study,  and,  having  squeezed  the 


4  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

juice  quite  easily  from  each  of  the  great  religions, 
throws  the  pulp  aside  and  passes  on  with  graceful 
stride   to   other   sources   of   spiritual   delight.     The 
second  school,  which  I  may  call  the  Factual,  is  at 
the  antipodes  of  this.     It  cares  not  for  juice  but  only 
for  pulp — and  the  dryer  the  pulp  the  better.     Its 
ideal  is  not  that  of  spiritual  delectation  (which  on  the 
whole  it  rather  scorns)  but  that  of  scholarly  exactness 
and  of  objective  truthfulness.     Let  values  take  care 
of  themselves,  it  declares;    what  we  want  are  the 
facts.     And   by   the   facts   it   usually   means    such 
things  as  the  minutiae  of  some  ancient  cult  or  the 
superstition  of  some  primitive  tribe.     With  that  odd 
asceticism  so   frequently  met  with  in   the  modern 
scholar,  it  generally  avoids,  almost  with  suspicion  or 
fear,  the  philosophies  and  the  poetry  of  the  higher 
rehgions,  and  with  stern  austerity  focuses  its  attention 
upon  various  minute  or  unrelated  details,   against 
which  at  any  rate  the  accusation  of  spirituality  can 
never  be  raised.     I  have  of  course  exaggerated,  and 
purposely  exaggerated,  these  two  ways  of  writing  the 
history  of  religions;   hardly  any  reputable  student  of 
the  subject  could  be  said  to  employ  either  one  exclu- 
sively.    But  they  are  two  tendencies  each  of  which 
will  be  found  fairly  well  exemplified  in  several  fairly 
distinguished  writers  on  what  is  often  referred  to 
by  that  astonishing  title  ^'Comparative  Religion." 
The  third  way  of  going  at  our  subject  is  of  course 
the  attempt  to  retain  what  was  best  in  both  of  the 
extreme  methods  and  to  avoid  the  limitations   of 


THE  HISTORY  OF  RELIGIONS  $ 

each.  We  might  call  this  the  Way  of  Scholarly 
Insight.  Those  who  adopt  this  middle  way  are 
quite  as  empirical  in  their  study  as  are  the  members 
of  the  Factual  school,  but  it  cannot  be  said  that  they 
have  the  same  reverence  for  the  isolated  fact  as 
have  their  colleagues.  They  too  insist  on  starting 
with  facts,  but  they  are  not  satisfied  to  end  with 
them;  they  too  want  to  accumulate  facts,  but  they 
desire  also  to  understand  them.  They  share  with 
the  fact-collector  something  of  the  latter 's  disdain 
for  easy  generahzation  and  for  merely  sentimen- 
tal gusto;  but  while  they  would  scorn  themselves 
should  they  seek  merely  to  suck  the  sweet  juice  of 
their  subject,  they  are  by  no  means  satisfied  with  its 
dry  pulp  after  all  the  juice  has  been  sucked  out. 
In  short,  they  seek  neither  concentrated  juice  nor  a 
sucked  orange,  but  the  whole  fruit  in  its  living 
perfection.  They  insist  that  the  facts  of  the  world's 
religions  must  be  gathered  and  studied  with  patient 
and  scholarly  care  and  exactness,  but,  though  they 
regard  all  the  facts  as  worthy  of  study,  they  do  not 
regard  them  all  as  of  equal  value.  And  the  most 
important  of  the  facts,  the  most  worthy  of  scholarly 
examination,  they  consider  to  be  the  fundamen- 
tal meanings,  the  ultimate  conceptions,  the  moral 
ideals  and  incentives,  the  emotional  reinforcements, 
which  the  various  great  religions  have  contributed  to 
the  spiritual  fife  of  their  members. 

Of  the  various  particular  methods  used  by  the  stu- 
dents of  our  subject  to  formulate  an  exact  description 


6  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

of  the  myths  and  creeds,  the  cults,  customs,  and 
ideals  of  the  various  historical  religions,  I  need  say 
nothing,  for  they  are  obvious  and  known  to  all. 
Since  the  days  of  Herodotus  travelers  have  collected 
curious  rehgious  facts,  and  historians  have  chronicled 
them;  and  for  the  last  two  generations  in  particular, 
the  archaeologist  and  the  philologist  have  vied  with 
the  historian  and  the  traveler  and  with  learned 
native  adherents  of  the  various  reHgions  in  furnishing 
the  student  of  religious  history  with  all  sorts  of 
material  out  of  which  to  construct  as  complete  a 
picture  as  he  may  of  the  present  status  of  the  nine 
great  religions,  and  of  the  whole  life-story  or  natural 
history  which  they  and  their  five  dead  brothers 
present. 

But  when  the  student  of  religion  has  finished  this 
part  of  his  task,  the  most  difficult  and  perhaps  the 
most  important  portion  still  remains  to  do.  For  he 
should  not,  and  the  true  scholar  cannot,  be  satisfied 
with  merely  a  description  of  what  the  various  religious 
people  of  the  world  beheve  and  how  they  act.  The 
mere  fact-collector,  or  the  fanatical  zealot,  or  the 
globe-trotter,  or  the  smugly  self-satisfied  Yankee  or 
British  reader,  may,  indeed,  note  with  interest  and 
perhaps  with  glee  the  seemingly  preposterous  behefs 
and  rituaHstic  actions  of  the  "heathen"  and  will 
care  to  do  no  more  than  to  set  them  down  for  pubH- 
cation  in  fat  and  learned  volumes,  or  to  advertise 
them  abroad  for  the  edification  of  the  faithful,  or 
to  bring  them  out  in  conversation  at  home  for  the 


THE  HISTORY  OF  RELIGIONS  7 

greater  -glory  of  Anglo-Saxon  common  sense,  as 
the  interest  of  each  may  direct;  but  the  thoughtful 
scholar  finds  in  these  facts  only  a  new  challenge,  only 
a  new  problem  in  need  of  a  solution.  For  it  is 
civilized  human  beings,  some  of  them  of  our  own 
Aryan  race,  men  whose  intelligence  and  sincerity 
are  really  not  to  be  questioned — it  is  often  people  of 
this  sort  who  actually  accept  these  seemingly  incred- 
ible creeds,  who  actually  perform  these  seemingly 
absurd  rites.  Surely  it  must  be  that  though  we  have 
the  ''facts"  we  do  not  yet  understand  them,  we  have 
not  yet  begun  to  get  at  the  bottom  of  the  matter; 
and  our  enormous  erudition  is  but  a  kind  of  learned 
illusion  until  we  have  found  out  what  is  behind  and 
underneath  our  ''facts"  and  why  it  is  that  the 
so-called  heathen  peoples  believe  and  worship  as 
they  really  do. 

The  problem  of  explanation  is  not  a  modern  one. 
Nor  does  it  arise  only  concerning  religions  to  which 
the  student  or  questioner  does  not  himself  belong. 
In  many,  and  probably  in  all,  of  the  great  religions 
the  question  was  raised  long,  long  ago  as  to  the 
explanation  of  its  own  creed  and  cult.  In  all  of  these 
cases  the  first  answers  were  identical:  Both  the  cult 
and  the  creed  were  due  to  some  sort  of  authoritative 
or  divine  revelation.  This  was  simple  and  satisf>dng. 
But  when  the  problem  arose  of  explaining  some  foreign 
rehgion,  plainly  some  other  hypothesis  was  needed. 
We  know  how  our  own  Christian  Fathers  met  this 
problem — a  very  pressing  one  in  their  day.     The 


8  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

Pagan  cults  and  myths,  they  insisted,  were,  like  the 
Christian  Scriptures,  to  be  referred  to  a  kind  of 
supernatural  revelation,  but  this  revelation  came  not 
from  God  but  from  the  devils.  In  contrast  to  this 
view,  the  Epicurean  thinkers  of  the  time  had  a  much 
more  scientific  form  of  explanation,  and  one  which 
they  appHed  to  all  religions.  These  were  due, 
namely,  to  mere  ignorance  and  fear.  As  everyone 
knows,  this  view  received  its  most  elaborate  exposition 
in  Lucretius'  great  philosophic  poem,  and  its  most 
epigrammatic  expression  in  Petronius'  oft-quoted 
assertion.  Primus  in  orhis  timor  fecit  deos.  Later  on 
by  a  millennium  and  a  half  the  same  explanation  crops 
up  again — at  least  as  far  as  the  non- Christian  religions 
are  concerned — in  the  writings  of  the  deists  and  of 
their  like-minded  opponents.  Priests  and  skilled 
politicians,  according  to  this  view,  in  order  to  keep 
the  masses  in  subjection,  invented  the  various 
religions — and  very  likely  most  of  morahty  as  well — 
and  disseminated  them  among  the  people.  Fortu- 
nately for  the  reputation  of  the  eighteenth  century 
one  of  its  greatest  thinkers — David  Hume — saw  the 
absurdity  of  such  a  view;  and  the  new  historical  sense, 
which  was  the  nineteenth  century's  chief  contribution 
to  the  intellectual  life,  forever  put  an  end  to  such 
mechanical  methods  of  explanation. 

The  modern  student  of  our  subject  feels  that  he 
cannot  fully  understand  a  religion  until  he  has  had 
recourse  to  a  number  of  aUied  fields  of  investigation. 
Among  the  most  fundamental  of  these  is  geography. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  RELIGIONS  9 

If  the  student  confines  his  attention  to  one  rehgion, 
to  be  sure,  he  may  not  be  greatly  impressed  with  the 
influence  of  geographical  and  climatic  environment, 
but  if  he  makes  a  comparative  study  of  religious  ideas 
and  institutions  he  can  hardly  fail  to  note  how  the 
beliefs  and  customs  and  symbols  of  the  different 
peoples  have  varied  with  the  latitude,  the  altitude, 
the  rain  supply,  and  the  many  other  factors  which 
are  studied  by  the  modern  geographer.  Rain  gods 
and  sun  gods  and  sea  gods,  fearful  and  loving,  benefi- 
cent, intriguing,  indifferent,  the  divine  wrath  of  the 
tempest,  the  serene  calm  of  Olympus — with  what 
almost  pathetic  eagerness  have  the  sons  of  men 
stretched  out  hands  of  faith  to  the  details  of  their 
physical  environment  for  forms  and  symbols  in 
which  to  clothe  the  Determiner  of  Destiny! 

The  geographical  influences  are  elemental  but 
somewhat  elementary.  For  explanation  of  the  devel- 
opment of  a  religion,  especially  in  its  intellectual 
and  moral  aspects,  one  must  turn  to  the  political, 
economic,  and  social  experiences  of  the  people  who 
profess  it.  The  form  of  tribal  or  national  organi- 
zation may  have  little  effect  upon  the  forms  under 
which  they  image  forth  their  God,  but  will  often  have 
a  profound  influence  upon  the  inner  nature  of  that 
God  as  they  conceive  him.  The  forms  of  their 
industry,  the  economic  conditions  of  their  life,  will 
modify  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  many  of  their 
religious  conceptions.  Other  social  influences  will 
go  deeper  still.     The  very  sharp  contrast  between  the 


10  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

essentially  moral  Yahweh  and  the  only  partially 
moralized  Zeus  or  Indra  is  to  be  explained  in  part  by 
the  difference  in  social  or  tribal  organization  between 
the  ancient  Israelites,  on  the  one  hand,  and  their 
contemporaries,  the  Greeks  and  Indians.  It  would 
be  superfluous  in  this  presence  to  point  out  how 
human  kingship,  political  conquest,  and  above  all 
the  historical  development  of  the  various  peoples  of 
antiquity  got  themselves  reflected  in  the  developing 
characters  of  their  gods. 

Many  a  scholarly  work  on  some  aspect  of  the 
history  of  religions  has  been  written  with  no  other 
methods  of  interpretation  and  explanation  than 
those  which  I  have  thus  briefly  sketched.  With 
such  tools  one  can  indeed  find  out  what  the  various 
peoples  have  believed  and  done  and  to  some  extent 
can  understand  why  their  creeds  and  their  cults  have 
developed  in  the  ways  we  find.  But  a  method  of 
investigation  which  goes  no  farther  than  this  still 
leaves  much  undiscovered  which  many  of  us  would 
gladly  know.  It  goes  indeed  much  farther  than  mere 
description,  but  it  fails  to  bring  us  to  the  heart  of  the 
matter.  We  should  Hke,  if  we  may,  to  understand 
the  various  non- Christian  religions  from  within, 
to  catch  at  least  a  glimpse  of  the  way  they  appear  to 
those  born  within  the  fold,  to  apprehend  something 
of  their  inner  religious  life,  in  short,  not  merely  to 
observe  these  religions  from  without,  but  to  know 
something  of  how  they  feel.  To  do  this  may  be  very 
difficult,  but  until  we  have  made  at  least  a  beginning 


THE  HISTORY  OF  RELIGIONS  li 

at  it  the  ^'heathen"  religions  will  still  be  in  a  large 
sense  incomprehensible  to  us.  We  shall  understand 
them,  perhaps,  as  we  understand  molecules  and 
masses,  but  in  no  more  inner  and  living  fashion.  For 
such  an  inner  comprehension  we  must  turn  from 
geography  and  even  from  history  and  economics  and 
government  to  the  psychology  of  rehgion. 

The  problem  why  people  believe  and  worship  as 
they  do  is  in  part  a  social,  in  part  an  individual,  one; 
and  the  problem  in  the  case  of  any  given  generation, 
and  therefore  in  all  the  generations,  cannot  be  under- 
stood until  we  have  studied  the  psychological  pro- 
cesses by  which  tradition  is  handed  on.  It  is  easy, 
of  course,  to  say  that  tradition  is  handed  on  by  educa- 
tion and  imitation;  but  to  stop  with  that  would  be  to 
satisfy  ourselves  with  words.  For  a  really  enlighten- 
ing view  of  the  matter  we  must  study  in  some  detail 
the  nature  of  individual  belief  and  of  the  social  pro- 
cesses of  imitation,  suggestion,  and  sympathy.  No 
detailed  examination  of  these  things,  of  course,  is 
possible  within  the  Hmits  of  this  paper,  but  I  may 
perhaps  in  a  few  words  indicate  the  general  outlines 
of  the  psychological  processes  involved. 

As  someone  has  put  it,  ^'behef  is  as  natural  as 
breathing."  The  child  accepts  as  real  whatever  is 
presented  to  him.  Doubt  of  its  reahty  is  not  among 
the  conceivabilities.  This  native  state  of  the  human 
mind  has  been  called  '' primitive  credulity, "  a  term  we 
owe  to  Bain  and  which  includes  within  itself  a  whole 
chapter  of  psychology.     Yet  while  the  tendency  to 


12  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

believe  whatever  is  presented  is  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  childhood,  but  characterizes  every  doubting 
Thomas  when  not  on  his  guard,  it  is  a  tendency  which 
at  times,  even  early  in  life,  is  balked  by  the  divergent 
nature  of  human  experience.  The  child  naturally 
believes  everything  he  sees  and  everything  that  is 
told  him.  But  there  comes  a  time  when  something 
he  is  told  is  flatly  contradicted  by  something  that  he 
sees.  Doubt  now  arises  as  a  new  and  perplexing 
experience,  and  a  choice  must  be  made  between 
authorities.  In  the  struggle  between  rival  claimants 
to  belief  several  factors  combine  to  determine  the 
result.  One  of  the  most  important  of  these  is  the 
vividness,  strength,  and  prestige  which  sense  per- 
ception invariably  gives  to  every  idea  with  which  it  is 
closely  connected.  To  see  is  to  believe.  Another 
almost  equally  important  factor  in  the  psychology 
of  belief,  especially  with  more  mature  and  developed 
minds,  is  inner  and  outer  coherence.  A  view  or 
teaching  whose  parts  obviously  conflict  with  each 
other  is  likely  to  dissolve,  to  analyze  itself  almost 
automatically  into  its  constituent  elements — unless 
indeed  it  possess  sufficient  authoritative  or  emotional 
strength  to  force  one  to  blink  the  inner  inconsistency. 
Outer  incoherence,  i.e.,  inability  to  fit  into  our 
already  accepted  body  of  beliefs,  is  for  every  new 
teaching  an  almost  more  serious  weakness.  The  new 
is  judged  by  the  old,  and  if  its  inconsistency  with  the 
old  and  revered  be  recognized  the  chances  of  its 
acceptance  will  be  very  poor  indeed.    The  emotional 


THE  HISTORY  OF  RELIGIONS  13 

appeal  of  a  given  idea,  moreover,  and  its  tendency  to 
confirm  or  deny  our  desires  are  further  elements  to  be 
considered  in  explaining  the  acceptance  and  retention 
or  the  rejection  of  an  idea. 

Of    these    various    factors    determining    human 
beHef    perhaps    the    most    important    is    primitive 
creduHty,  especially  if  we  consider  it  in  connection 
with  the  enormous  prestige  which  the  social  source  of 
information  possesses  over  our  minds— a  force  so 
great  as  to  be  explicable  only  by  the  fact  that  it  is 
based  on  our  gregarious  instmct,  back  of  which  we 
need  not  go.     The  child  is  born  into  the  world  of 
grown-ups,  and  is  as  defenseless  against  the  power 
of  their  beliefs  as  he  would  be  against  the  force  of 
their  arms.     Nature  has  endowed  him  both  with  the 
suggestibiUty  and  primitive  creduHty  which  we  have 
been  considering,  and  also  with  an  irresistible  tend- 
ency to  share  the  contagious  emotions  which  those 
around  him  express,  and  to  unitate  their  actions. 
How,  then,  would  it  be  possible  for  him  even  to 
doubt  the  religious  beUefs  or  escape  the  rehgious 
feehngs  which  all  those  older  than  himself  unite  in 
forcing   upon   his   plastic  mind?     ''One   generation 
shall  praise  Thy  works  to  another  and  shall  extol 
Thy  mighty   acts."     Thus   each   generation  works 
upon    its    successor    in    irresistible    fashion.     This 
process  of  rehgious  molding  of  each  young  mind  is 
both   deliberately  exphcit  and  unconscious  and  in- 
direct.    The  child  is  taught  by  its  parents  and  by 
the  priest  in  the  temple  or  the  monk  in  the  vihara 


14  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

certain  traditional  ideas  which  the  entire  community 
accepts;  but  the  indirect  influence  of  the  tradition 
upon  his  mind  is  even  more  massive.  For  the  ideas  in 
question  form  the  background  and  the  presupposition 
of  much  of  the  conversation  and  much  of  the  action 
and  of  the  feehng  of  the  whole  community.  The  only 
way  in  which  the  individual  could  come  to  question 
them  would  be  (as  we  have  seen)  by  finding  them  in 
some  way  incongruous  either  with  themselves  or 
with  an  established  system  of  belief.  But  it  is  only 
a  very  few  of  the  religious  beliefs  of  mankind  that 
are  really  inconsistent  with  themselves,  and  such 
inconsistency  when  it  exists  is  usually  evident  only 
to  the  exceptionally  thoughtful.  And  as  to  outer 
incongruity  of  the  traditional  belief,  that  is  usually 
out  of  the  question,  for  the  tradition  is  the  first  of  all 
ideational  systems  to  get  possession  of  the  mind,  and 
it  therefore  becomes  the  touchstone  by  which  all 
other  beliefs  have  to  be  tried  and  accepted  or  rejected. 
When  one  understands  the  psychological  process  by 
which  the  tradition  is  thus  handed  down  to  each 
successive  generation,  one  no  longer  wonders  how  it  is 
that  the  people  of  other  lands  than  ours  come  to 
believe  such  strange  things.  One,  in  fact,  is  put 
upon  inquiry  whether  the  touchstone  by  which  we  at 
first  judge  their  ideas  to  be  strange — namely  our  own 
inherited  mass  of  beliefs — might  not  rightly  seem 
strange  to  intelligent  visitors  from  other  faiths. 

It  might  seem  strange  to  them,  we  may  reply, 
because  they  would  not  really  understand  our  faith. 


TEE  HISTORY  OF  RELIGIONS  15 

This  is  true.  But  the  apphcation  of  it  works  both 
ways.  Part  of  our  difficulty  in  vitalizing  for  our- 
selves the  creeds  of  other  religions — in  feeling  our  way 
into  the  living  heart  of  these  faiths — is  due  to  the 
fact  that  we  substitute  for  their  actual  beliefs  the 
form  of  words  in  which  those  beliefs  have  been  cast 
either  by  the  believers  themselves  or  by  those  who 
report  them  to  us.  We  take  the  outer  symbol  for 
the  inner  life,  and  we  do  this  because  we  have  failed 
to  understand  the  psychology  of  symbohsm.  For 
the  forms  of  creed  and  of  cult  possessed  by  the  more 
inteUigent  and  spiritual  of  the  great  historical  rehgions 
are  always  to  some  extent,  and  often  to  a  very  great 
extent,  symboHc.  Doubtless  the  verbal  symbol  was 
at  the  time  of  its  origin  an  attempt  at  the  literal 
statement  of  some  genuine  beHef,  just  as  the  material 
symbol  has  probably  developed  from  objects  which 
originally  were  regarded  as  somehow  divine  or 
magically  powerful  in  their  own  right.  But  much 
water  has  flowed  under  the  bridges  since  those  early 
days;  and  the  symbol,  whether  material  or  verbal, 
has  inevitably  come  to  mean  both  less  and  more. 
Many  of  the  devout  and  orthodox  adherents  of  the 
great  rehgions  care  little  and  think  little  of  the  literal 
meaning  of  their  s>TQbols;  and  even  to  the  less 
intelhgent  and  the  more  Hterally-minded  masses 
the  symbol  has  taken  on  during  the  course  of  ages 
new  meaning  and  a  new  emotional  significance 
which  largely  overshadow  its  Uteral  side  and  have 
quite  transformed  its  total  value.     Thus  it  comes 


i6  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

that  to  the  outside  observer  the  symbols  of  a  foreign 
reHgion  seem  always  meager  and  usually  unattractive 
if  not  disgusting.  For  in  the  making  of  its  symbols 
each  of  the  great  religions  usually  takes  some  common 
objects  of  superstitious  regard  or  some  expressions 
of  perhaps  crude  belief,  wears  off  their  edges  by 
centuries  of  loving  use,  pours  round  them  the  accumu- 
lating emotion  of  the  faith  of  generations,  purifies 
them  through  all  the  fiery  trials,  the  failures  and 
successes,  the  joys  and  the  sufferings,  of  the  race, 
ennobles  them  by  identification  with  the  spiritual 
ideals  and  aspirations  of  countless  heroes  and  saints 
who  from  their  labors  rest,  and  thus  endows  them 
with  a  power  over  the  imagination  and  the  emotions 
and  the  living  faith  of  each  growing  individual  mind 
that  can  come  only  through  the  massive  authority 
and  prestige  of  the  entire  community,  both  living 
and  dead. 

Much  of  what  I  have  been  saying  applies  to  cult 
quite  as  well  as  to  creed.  A  perfectly  accurate 
account  of  the  ritual,  say  of  Hinduism  or  Buddhism, 
from  the  pen  of  the  most  scholarly  student  of  the 
history  of  religions  may  give  us  no  more  insight 
into  its  real  nature,  no  more  apprehension  of  what  is 
actually  going  on,  than  we  should  get  from  a  photo- 
graph. A  photograph  of  a  religious  ceremonial  may 
be  of  considerable  assistance  to  our  understanding. 
But  where  is  the  color,  where  the  incense,  where  the 
music?  The  scholar's  description  shows  accurately 
the  positions  and   the  movements   of  the  various 


TEE  HISTORY  OF  RELIGIONS  17 

physical  bodies,  both  inanimate  and  animate;    but 
it  may  leave  out  of  account  the  fact  that  there  are 
minds  and  hearts  inside  some  of  those  bodies,  and 
may  give  us  no  clue  as  to  how  inteUigent  people  can 
possibly    say    and    do    the    things    described.    To 
understand  the  cult  we  must,  therefore,  not  merely 
have  it  accurately  described,  we  must  not  only  be 
able  to  trace  its  historical  development  and  see  what 
external    influences    have    helped    to    formulate    it: 
we  must  also  study  the  psychological  function  which 
it  plays  in  the  life  of  religion.    This  function  may  be 
said,  in  brief,  to  consist  in  keeping  faith  lively  and 
vivid,  in  stimulating  reHgious  emotion,  and  in  fasten- 
ing the  attention  upon  reHgion  in  such  fashion  as  to 
make  it  real  and  vital  to  the  worshiper.    This  function 
it  performs  in  various  ways.     One  of  the  most  impor- 
tant ways  in  which  the  cult— particularly  its  ''cruder 
forms"— strengthens  rehgious  behef  is  by  bringing 
it  new  reality  of  feehng  by  contact  with  the  senses. 
In  studying  behef  we  saw  how  greatly  the  sense  of 
reality  is  stimulated  by  direct  perception.     The  cult 
seizes  upon  this  fact  and  links  up  the  divine  object  of 
faith  with  immediately  presented  visible  and  tangible 
things.     Psychologically  speaking,  this  is  the  chief 
reHgious  function  of  pictures,  images,  miracle  plays, 
rehcs,  and  even  of  so  sacred  a  ceremonial  as  the 
Christian    Eucharist.     The    most    widespread    and 
perhaps  the  crudest  instance  of  this  aspect  of  the 
cult  is  to  be  found  in  idolatry.     For  nearly  all  human 
minds,  particularly  for  those  of  a  relatively  slight 


i8  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

intellectual  development,  it  is  difficult  to  make  either 
a  transcendent  or  an  omnipresent  deity  a  very  living 
reality.  When,  however,  the  religious  imagination  is 
stimulated  by  the  presence  of  a  visible  and  tangible 
object — an  object  not  indeed  completely  identified 
with  the  deity  but  regarded  as  one  in  which  the  deity 
has  consented  mysteriously  and  graciously  to  dwell 
— the  sense  of  God's  reality  and  of  his  very  presence 
becomes  easy  and  natural,  the  prayerful  attitude 
of  the  soul  is  induced,  and  the  worshiper  may  take 
away  with  him  something  of  the  same  reinforcement 
to  faith,  something  of  the  same  spiritual  uplift, 
which  many  a  Christian  feels,  and  rightly  feels,  after 
having  partaken  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  And  again 
let  me  repeat  that  a  true  understanding  of  symbolism 
is  essential  for  a  true  understanding  of  ritual.  For 
neither  the  idol  nor  any  other  object  used  in  the  cult 
can  be  rightly  understood  if  it  be  taken  literally  and 
only  so.  The  idol  may  be  worshiped  as  directly  as 
you  please;  it  may  be  identified  literally  with  the 
god;  yet  to  the  most  unintelligent  worshiper  it  is 
not  merely  wood  and  stone,  the  work  of  men's  hands. 
He  sees  in  it  more,  much  more,  than  a  camera  can 
see  or  a  chemical  analysis  can  discover,  more,  much 
more,  also  than  an  unsympathetic  though  scholarly 
observer  can  ever  imagine.  And  to  the  more  intel- 
ligent and  spiritual  worshiper  of  every  religion  the 
wood  and  stone  are  consciously  recognized  as  merely 
incidental  helps,  to  be  prized  and  used  only  because  of 
our  finite  limitations. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  RELIGIONS  19 

The  contrast  I  have  just  referred  to  between  the 
two  ways  of  using  images  is  a  part  of  a  larger  distinc- 
tion between  two  types  of  worship  which,  in  another 
connection,  and  for  want  of  better  terms,  I  have 
called  the  objective  and  the  subjective — a  distinction 
which,  it  seems  to  me,  gives  considerable  assistance 
in  understanding  the  varying  forms  of  different 
religions.  In  its  simpler  and  less  self-conscious 
forms,  worship  is  an  effort  to  thank  or  praise  or  in 
some  manner  mollify  or  please  the  deity.  It  is 
naively  objective  in  its  aim.  This,  for  example,  is 
the  leading  purpose  of  much  of  the  worship  that  one 
finds  alike  in  the  Hindu  temple  and  in  the  Catholic 
cathedral.  To  produce  any  sort  of  psychological 
effect  upon  the  worshipers  is  among  the  last  things 
intended.  The  eft'ect,  however,  is  produced,  as  we 
have  seen — the  faith  is  stimulated,  the  prayerful 
attitude  of  mind  is  brought  about,  religious  emotions 
and  possibly  moral  aspirations  are  induced  in  the 
worshiping  auditors.  The  more  self-conscious  and 
reflective  individuals  and  religions  perceive  this  fact, 
and  some  of  them,  therefore,  make  this  subjective 
effect  of  ritual  the  direct  object  of  their  efforts — 
a  situation  which  we  find  in  the  less  sophisti- 
cated indi\'iduals  and  communities  among  Buddhists, 
Jainas,  and  Protestant  Christians.  The  two  motives 
are  mingled  in  most  cases,  but  one  or  the  other 
usually  predominates;  and  it  is  frequently  difficult 
for  an  individual  accustomed  from  childhood  to  a 
form   of   worship   which   accentuates   one   of   these 


20  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

factors  to  see  anything  whatever  in  a  religious  cere- 
mony which  emphasizes  chiefly  the  other  form.  This 
is  an  additional  reason  why  the  Protestant  Christian 
is  likely  to  regard  not  only  the  Hindu  temple-worship 
but  also  the  Catholic  mass  as  mere  '^  mummery  and 
superstition";  while  both  the  Hindu  and  the  Catholic 
would  wonder  what  there  was  really  religious  about  a 
Protestant  church  service,  with  its  godless  and  altar- 
less  meeting  house,  its  sermon,  its  ''selection  by  the 
choir,"  and  even  its  "long  prayer,"  all  seemingly 
addressed  to  the  audience. 

Prayer  is  another  matter  upon  which  the  history 
of  religions  needs  light  from  the  psychology  of  religion. 
There  is  probably  nothing  in  the  actions  of  a  strange 
people  which  to  an  unsympathetic  and  unimaginative 
observer  seems  more  strange  and  unintelligible  than 
their  prayers.  Such  an  observer  will  get  but  little 
assistance  from  reading  the  voluminous  compilations 
of  prayers  ancient  and  modern  wrought  out  by  the 
labors  of  our  archaeologists  and  philologists;  nor  in 
his  effort  to  understand  why  people  actually  pray, 
and  why  they  repeat  such  strange  prayers,  will  he 
be  greatly  helped  by  the  ingenious  theories  of  the 
anthropologists  as  to  how  prayer  originated  from  spell. 
He  will  indeed  get  some  light  if  he  observes — it  may 
be  by  his  own  introspection — how  spell  tends  to 
originate  from  prayer.  For  by  observing  how 
spontaneous  prayer  crystallizes,  through  the  force 
of  habit,  into  formal  prayer,  and  how  formal  prayers 
which  possess  the  prestige  of  long  social  usage  come 


TEE  HISTORY  OF  RELIGIONS  21 

to  be  regarded  as  somehow  sacred,  he  will  understand 
how  inevitable  it  is  that  many  ancient  prayers 
should  gain  a  power  over  the  unreflecting  mind 
quite  comparable  to  that  sometimes  possessed  by 
magic  formulas.  Given  the  facts  of  primitive  cre- 
dulity, habit,  and  the  prestige  of  antiquity,  it  is 
not  strange  that  many  of  the  less  intelligent  in  every 
religion  should  pray  as  if  they  were  to  be  heard  for 
their  much  speaking.  But  this  gives  one  only  a  very 
partial  understanding  of  the  nature  of  prayer  and 
of  the  question  why  men  pray.  A  deeper  study  of 
the  rehgious  consciousness  will  be  necessary  if  one  is 
to  understand  what  real  prayer — whether  Christian 
or  heathen — is  like  on  its  inner  side.  For  if  one 
asks  prayerful  people — and  that  means  common 
people — why  they  pray,  he  will  probably  be  told, 
not  that  it  is  from  habit,  but  that  they  pray  because 
they  cannot  help  doing  so.  The  consciousness  of 
human  weakness  and  the  burning  human  needs  com- 
bine to  make  men  stretch  out  their  arms  in  appeal 
to  the  Determiner  of  Destiny.  The  longing  is  a 
psycho-dynamic  force  and  will  get  itself  somehow 
expressed,  whether  it  be  in  a  mere  cry,  in  a  consciously 
formed  petition,  in  a  traditional  prayer  learned  in 
childhood  and  phrased  in  words  not  understood,  or, 
it  may  be,  in  a  mere  attitude  or  posture  or  motion 
of  the  body.  The  bodily  postures  of  prayer,  often 
so  strange  to  the  onlooker,  are  to  be  explained  in 
part  as  natural  instinctive  expressions  of  submission 
and  appeal,  in  part  as  habitual  responses  associated 


2  2  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

since  the  plastic  days  of  childhood  with  the  mental 
attitudes  of  reverence  and  supplication.  Their  reten- 
tion through  the  ages  is  not  due  exclusively  nor  chiefly 
to  superstitious  conservatism,  but  principally  to  the 
religious  utility  which  they  serve  in  aiding  to  bring 
about  the  prayerful  state  of  mind.  In  like  manner 
the  formal  prayers  of  nine-tenths  of  the  world,  which 
cause  so  much  disturbance  to  the  self-satisfied 
Protestant,  have  their  very  real  religious  utility. 
The  articulation  of  a  definite  form  of  religious  words, 
sanctified  through  tradition,  has  the  same  kind  of 
psychological  effect  as  traditional  bodily  posture; 
in  fact  it  is  usually  of  even  greater  importance.  Only 
for  the  mystically  minded  is  wordless  prayer  possible; 
and  many  a  man  finds  in  the  verbal  forms  of  tradition 
a  better  means  of  focusing  his  religious  attention 
than  in  any  poor  words  of  his  own  extemporaneous 
invention.  This  is  true,  strange  as  it  may  at  first 
seem,  even  of  prayers  the  words  of  which  are  entirely 
unintelligible  to  the  worshiper.  For  words  are  often 
— yes,  often  even  in  our  best  and  most  religious 
moments — but  the  semimaterial  forms  in  which  we 
clothe  the  spirit  of  our  prayer,  a  spirit  of  longing  and 
of  aspiration  which  is  itself  ineffable.  It  is  a  mistake 
to  suppose  that  our  minds  regularly  follow  the  words 
of  our  prayers,  or  that  we  fail  to  pray  unless  they 
are  thus  nailed  down  to  verbal  meanings.  And  it  is 
quite  possible,  and  it  is  frequently  actual  that  the 
most  sacred  associations  of  life  begun  in  infancy  and 
carried  on  to  the  end  may  so  weave  themselves  about 


THE  HISTORY  OF  RELIGIONS  23 

even  meaningless  syllables  that  these  may  come  to  be 
the  embodiment  of  reverence,  confession,  petition, 
longing,  aspiration.     I  spoke  of  them  as  "meaningless 
syllables";   they  are  not  that.     They  may  be  taken 
from  a  foreign  and  unknown  language  and  hence  may 
not  convey  to  the  worshiper  the  same  meaning  that 
they  did  to  the  original  author  of  them  centuries  ago ; 
but  they  may  be  brimful  of  meaning  none  the  less 
— a  meaning,  it  may  be,  too  vague,  too  emotional, 
to  be  put  into  words;   but  for  all  that  none  the  less 
adapted  for  the  bearing  of  that  religious  emotion 
which  fills  the  heart.     I  remember  hearing  the  voice 
of  a  Burmese  woman  in  a  Buddhist  shrine  in  Man- 
dalay,   shrill  and  clear  and  impassioned,  with   the 
heart's  longing  in  every  syllable,  appealing  to  the 
Lord  Buddha  and  to  the  dark  Determiner  of  Destiny, 
repeating  her  prayer  over  and  over,  intensely,  wildly, 
filling  all  the  courtyard  of  the  deserted  vihara.     The 
prayer  was  in  Pali,  and  I  presume  she  understood 
not  a  word  of  what  she  said.     Not  a  word,  perhaps; 
but    she    understood    the    prayer.     The    seemingly 
meaningless  words  sacred  to  her  from  childhood's 
experiences  she  took  and  filled  with  a  meaning  of 
her  own.     That  meaning  perhaps,  like  the  meaning 
of  music,  could  not  have  been  put  into  words.     But 
the  prayer  had  a  very  real  meaning  for  her;  it  had  a 
meaning  even  for  me;    and  I  am  sure  if  the  Lord 
Buddha  was  for  a  moment  roused  by  it  out  of  the 
supreme  bliss  of  Nirvana — as  well  he  might  have  been — 
that  he  too  heard  and  understood  that  woman's  prayer. 


24  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

If  time  permitted  it  might  be  of  interest  to  continue 
the  application  of  the  psychological  point  of  view  to 
various  other  phenomena  studied  by  the  history  of 
religion,  to  such  things,  for  example,  as  the  belief  in 
God  and  the  various  forms  of  God,  the  belief  in 
immortality,  the  social  religious  upheavals  common 
to  all  religions,  which  in  Protestantism  we  call  revi- 
vals, to  the  conversion  experience — also  common  to 
the  religions  of  all  races — to  asceticism,  to  mysticism, 
and  to  the  great  values  of  religion  in  its  bearing  upon 
truth,  upon  happiness,  and  upon  the  moral  life. 
These  applications,  however,  I  must  leave  each  of 
you  to  make  out  for  himself.  But  the  considerations 
to  which  I  have  called  your  attention  have,  I  trust, 
been  sufficient  to  indicate  the  importance  of  applying 
to  the  study  of  the  history  of  religions  whatever  of 
psychological  insight  we  can  summon  if  we  are  to 
make  the  objects  of  our  study  really  comprehensible. 
To  put  the  whole  matter  in  a  sentence,  the  history  of 
religions  ought  to  be  plausible;  plausibility  is  as 
desirable  for  a  book  in  this  field  as  it  is  for  a  novel. 
And  without  some  imaginative  insight  based  upon  a 
sound  psychology,  the  religions  of  the  non-Christian 
world — and  a  large  part  of  the  religions  of  the  Chris- 
tian world — will  remain  on  their  inner  side  almost  as 
unintelHgible  to  us  as  they  were  to  the  Deists. 

James  Bissett  Pratt 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION 


PHILOSOPHIC  CONCEPTIONS  ON  WHICH  FURTHER 
RELIGIOUS  PROGRESS  DEPENDS 

When,  in  the  ongoing  of  that  irreversible  process 
we  call  life,  we  reach  the  reflective  stage,  the  products 
of  reflection  become  factors  of  fundamental  impor- 
tance in  further  development.  Instinct,  the  naive 
views  of  childhood,  and  the  fool-killer  have  by  this 
time  done  for  us  nearly  all  that  they  can  do.  And  of 
these  three  the  last  is  not  the  most  insignificant,  for 
nature  and  society  are  constantly  eliminating  those 
who  hold  unworkable  theories  of  life.  This  is  to  say 
that  eventually,  in  the  course  of  his  development, 
man  becomes  a  creature  in  whom  ideas,  ideals,  and 
philosophy  count.  He  continues  to  be  driven  by 
impulse  and  appetite,  but  he  is  no  longer  solely  driven. 
He  is  moved  by  attraction,  lured  upward  and  onward 
by  visions  of  the  better,  by  a  homesickness  for  the 

perfect. 

The  fiend  that  man  harries 
Is  love  of  the  best. 

As  the  world  grows  older,  man  is  ever  discovering 
new  values,  while  at  the  same  time  he  is  learning 
more  about  his  place  in  the  universe.  He  seeks  to 
co-ordinate  and  systematize  these  values  so  that 
they  may  be  realized  together  to  the  maximum  extent 

25 


26  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

in  the  individual  and  social  life.  As  he  becomes 
aware  of  his  place  in  the  infinities,  and  has  some 
glimpse  of  the  great  frame  in  which  his  hfe  is  set, 
the  question  inevitably  arises  as  to  the  cosmic  fate 
of  these  values.  Are  they  revelations  of  the  nature 
of  reality  or  are  they  merely  epiphenomenal,  evanes- 
cent by-products  of  that  which  is  physically  real? 
Is  the  universe  congenial  to  our  ideals,  or  is  it  hostile 
or  indifferent?  What  is  the  relation  of  the  highest 
values  to  the  mechanism  of  the  world?  What  is 
reality  ?  Is  it  what  physics  studies  or  are  Platonism 
and  Christianity  substantially  right  ? 

These  questions  cannot  be  escaped  except  by  the 
immature,  and  they  must  be  answered  correctly  if 
human  life  is  to  keep  in  its  upward  and  onward  way. 
It  has  been  truly  said  that  philosophy  is  the  unseen 
framework  of  all  that  we  think  or  do.  General  ideas 
as  to  what  is  possible  or  practicable  are  powerful 
stimulants  or  depressors.  They  act  as  tonics  or 
deterrents  according  as  they  legitimate  or  negate 
our  deepest  longings  and  ideal  strivings. 

Of  the  many  needs  of  our  time,  none  perhaps  is 
deeper  than  that  which  can  be  met  only  by  a  philoso- 
phy of  religion.  By  this  term  I  mean  a  comprehen- 
sive, synthetic,  synoptic  view  which  includes  what 
science  has  discovered  about  the  universe  and  which 
also  finds  a  place  for  religion.  The  average  thought- 
ful man  has  reached  some  conclusions  as  to  the  relation 
of  physics  to  ethics,  of  the  practically  possible  to 
ideal   aims,    conclusions  which   influence  him  more 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  27 

than  he  knows.  He  may  not  realize  that  he  has 
philosophized  and  he  may  even  defame  philosophy. 
Nevertheless  he  always  has  an  idea-system  which  in 
some  degree  stimulates  or  paralyzes  the  higher 
energies  of  his  life.  And  the  more  unconscious  his 
philosophy  is  the  poorer  it  is.  For  we  either  con- 
sciously and  after  some  critical  examination  accept 
a  world-view,  or  we  adopt  it  uncritically  and  become 
its  victims.  Some  scheme  for  their  thoughts  all 
reflective  men  inevitably  have.  The  only  question  is 
whether  it  shall  be  philosophically  arrived  at  and 
continually  revised  in  the  direction  of  adequacy  and 
truth,  or  unsuspectingly  adopted  and  dogmatically 
held. 

Man's  philosophy,  his  comprehensive  view  of 
things  and  values,  is  his  only  protection  from  one- 
sided ideas  of  life.  Alas  for  him  when  it  is  itself 
one-sided!  Everyone  who  has  conversed  with  others 
on  great  themes  must  have  realized  in  their  case  at 
least,  if  not  in  his  own,  that  a  world-view  affects  the 
weight  of  evidence  and  so  determines  the  receptivity 
of  the  mind  in  special  ways.  It  is,  for  example, 
useless  to  tell  some  things  to  some  people,  for  they 
simply  have  not  any  place  to  put  these  facts  and 
truths.  The  very  possibility  of  them  is  excluded 
from  the  classification  their  minds  have  made.  A 
complete  demonstration  would  simply  dumbfound 
them.  Their  mental  life  will  have  to  undergo  a 
plowing  by  deep  experiences  before  they  can 
entertain  the  considerations  which  are  now  foreign 
to  their  ideas  of  reality  and  possibility. 


28  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

A  very  large  number  of  intelligent,  serious,  and 
sincere  minds  are  suffering  from  a  crude  and  narrow 
naturalism,  according  to  which  the  reality  of  the 
universe  is  matter  in  motion,  the  ultimate  truth  of 
which  is  physics  and  mechanics.  Many  of  these 
men  and  women  are  of  deeply  religious  nature,  but 
all  that  they  care  most  for,  the  intellectual,  aesthetic, 
moral,  and  religious  values,  seem  to  them  but  frail 
and  inexplicable  phenomena,  soon  to  be  lost  in  the 
nothingness  of  the  past. 

Some  of  them  have  become  imprisoned  in  this 
view  before  they  were  aware  of  what  was  taking 
place.  Not  having  been  forewarned,  and  without 
the  protection  which  philosophic  studies  can  give, 
this  depressing  conviction  that  all  is  mechanism  and 
that  religion  deals  with  beautiful  and  comfortable 
illusions  steals  over  them  while  engaged  in  physical 
researches.  They  form  a  conception  of  nature  from  a 
consideration  solely  of  her  physical  aspects  and  then 
seek  to  make  it  include  those  values,  those  realities 
that  men  live  and  die  for,  and  that  ought  to  have 
influenced  the  conception  of  what  nature  really  is. 
The  result  is  inevitable.  If  in  framing  our  con- 
ception of  nature  we  leave  out  certain  realities,  there 
will  not  be  and  cannot  be  any  place  for  these  realities 
in  the  conception  so  framed.  What  was  ignored 
will  remain  outside  our  philosophy  and  be  henceforth 
simply  inexplicable. 

Now  all  ignored  interests  avenge  themselves.  The 
values  of  Hfe  are  of  one  family.     They  belong  together. 


TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  29 

To  omit  anyone  is  to  detract  from  the  rest.  How 
completely  a  naturalism  of  this  kind  negates  what  is 
most  precious  to  us  is  seen  with  perfect  clearness  in 
the  statement  by  Bertrand  Russell  in  his  beautiful 
essay  entitled  A  Free  Man's  Worship. 

The  world  which  science  presents  for  our  beHef, 
is,  he  says,  a  world  void  of  meaning. 

Amid  such  a  world,  if  anywhere,  our  ideals  henceforward 
must  find  a  home.    That  man  is  the  product  of  causes  which 
had  no  prevision  of  the  end  they  were   achieving;   that  his 
origin,  his  growth,  his  hopes  and  fears,  his  loves  and  his  beUefs, 
are   but   the  outcome   of   accidental   collocations   of   atoms; 
that  no  fire,  no  heroism,  no  intensity  of  thought  and  feeling, 
can  preserve  the  individual  life  beyond  the  grave;  that  all  the 
labors  of  the  ages,  all  the  devotion,  all  the  inspiration,  all  the 
noonday  brightness  of  human  genius,  are  destined  to  extinction 
in  the  vast  death  of  the  solar  system,  and  that  the  whole 
temple  of  man's  achievement  must  inevitably  be  buried  in  the 
debris  of  a  universe  in  ruins— all  these  things,  if  not  quite 
beyond  dispute,  are  yet  so  nearly  certain,  that  no  philosophy 
which   rejects   them   can  hope   to   stand.    Only   within   the 
scaffolding  of  these  truths,  only  on  the  firm  foundation  of 
unyielding  despair,  can  the  soul's  habitation  be  safely  built. 
....  The  Hfe  of  man  is  a  long  march  through  the  night, 
surrounded  by  invisible  foes,  tortured  by  weariness  and  pain, 
towards  a  goal  that  few  can  hope  to  reach,  and  where  none 
may  tarry  long.     One  by  one,  as  they  march,  our  comrades 
vanish  from  our  sight,  seized  by  the  silent  orders  of  omnipotent 
death.    Very  brief  is  the  time  in  which  we  can  help  them,  in 

which  their  happiness  or  misery  is  decided Brief  and 

powerless  is  man's  life;  on  hhn  and  all  his  race  the  slow,  siire 
doom  faUs  pitiless  and  dark.  BUnd  to  good  and  evil,  reckless 
of  destruction,  omnipotent  matter  rolls  on  its  relentless  way; 
for  man,  condemned  to-day  to  lose  his  dearest,  to-morrow 


30  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

himself  to  pass  through  the  gate  of  darkness,  it  remains  to 
cherish,  ere  yet  the  blow  falls,  the  lofty  thoughts  that  ennoble 
his  little  day:  disdaining  the  coward  terrors  of  the  slave  of 
Fate,  to  worship  at  the  shrine  that  his  own  hands  have  built: 
undismayed  by  the  empire  of  chance,  to  preserve  a  mind  free 
from  the  wanton  tyranny  that  rules  his  outward  life;  proudly 
defiant  of  the  irresistible  forces  that  tolerate,  for  a  moment, 
his  knowledge  and  his  condemnation,  to  sustain  alone,  a  weary 
but  unyielding  Atlas,  the  world  that  his  own  ideals  have 
fashioned,  despite  the  trampling  march  of  unconscious  power. 

Those  who  have  lightly  accepted  the  current 
naturalism  but  are  hiding  from  themselves  its  ultimate 
consequences  would  do  well  to  ponder  these  words, 
for,  granting  the  writer's  premises,  the  conclusion  he 
so  vividly  states  inevitably  follows  and  must  some  time 
be  faced.  Within  the  scaffolding  of  these  thoughts 
the  despairing,  reality-defying  attitude  he  advocates 
is  the  only  possible  religion.  A  pathetic  sympathy 
for  our  unhappy  race  is  all  that  remains  of  love, 
while  faith,  hope,  and  joy,  like  the  more  transient 
miracles  and  prophecies  of  early  Christianity,  must 
now  cease.  Paul  was  mistaken,  for  they  are  not  to 
abide,  but  after  surviving  for  a  score  of  centuries 
science  is  making  them  impossible  attitudes,  so  that 
they,  too,  are  to  be  done  away. 

Thought  along  this  line  has  evidently  reached 
an  impasse.  If  there  is  no  way  of  escape,  it  is  obvious 
that  among  educated  men  religion  must  soon  be 
numbered  among  the  things  that  were.  There  is  a 
way  out  of  the  difficulty  and  we  begin  to  walk  in  it 
the  moment  we  ask  the  question  which  Professor 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  31 

Russell  does  not  raise — Whence  this  superiority  of 
man  to  the  world  which  he  condemns  and  defies? 
Is  he  a  native  or  an  emigrant  from  some  other  universe 
into  this?  It  is  very  curious  that  a  mind  of  this 
order  is  content  to  accept  an  absolute  break  between 
man's  ideals  and  his  world.  But  surely  it  is  necessary 
to  remember  that  the  human  race  and  its  ideals  are 
an  outcome  of  the  world-process  and  have  their 
foundations  in  the  depths  of  reality.  It  is  no  longer 
possible  to  regard  the  world  as  separate  and  out  of 
organic  relation  with  the  conscious  lives  in  which  it 
culminates. 

If  we  forget  it,  the  result  is  tragedy.  For  a  con- 
viction that  we  are  strangers  in  an  indifferent  or 
hostile  world  that  is  far  stronger  than  we,  is  what  we 
inevitably  come  to  if,  in  forming  our  conception  of 
reality,  we  neglect  all  but  its  physical  aspects  and  then 
seek  to  find  in  nature  so  conceived  a  place  for  the 
highest  values.  If  this  imperfect  conception  were 
the  truth,  Professor  Russell's  heroic  attitude  in  facing 
the  tragedy  of  human  existence  would  be  ideal. 
But  it  is  not  the  truth.  There  is  no  such  nature. 
A  purely  physical  nature  is  an  abstraction.  Empiri- 
cally we  know  nothing  of  it  and  theoretically  it  has  no 
justification.  The  only  nature  that  we  know  is  the  na- 
ture that  has  produced  man,  human  civilization,  the  love 
and  beauty,  the  worship,  prayers,  and  ideal  strivings 
of  the  ages.  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle  in  Athens 
and  Christ  in  Galilee  and  Jerusalem  were  just  as  truly 
parts  of  nature  as  are  rocks  and  trees,  protoplasm, 


32  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

nebulae,  atoms,  and  ions  or  electric  energy.  In- 
deed, they  were  more  truly  representative  than 
things  inorganic  or  than  lowly  forms  of  life.  They 
were  the  outcome  of  perhaps  eighty  millions  of  years 
of  evolution  since  life  appeared  on  the  planet,  and 
the  fundamental  rational  principle  of  interpretation, 
when  dealing  with  matters  of  this  kind,  is  that  a 
process  is  more  truly  judged  by  its  outcome  than  by 
its  beginnings.  This  was  stated  by  Aristotle  in  the 
famous  words:  ''For  what  each  thing  is  when  fully 
developed,  we  call  its  nature,  whether  we  are  speaking 
of  a  man,  a  horse,  or  a  family."  {olov  yap  eKaarov 
ean  rrjs  yepiaecos  reXeadeiarjs,  ravrrjv  (f}afiep  Trjv  (pvatv 
elvai  eKOLJTov,  cbawep  avdpooirov,  I'ttttou,  ol/ctas — Politics 
i.  2.  8.)  That  is,  we  now  think  of  the  world  in  terms 
of  process  and  we  know  that  "no  process  can  be 
truly  described  unless  it  is  viewed  in  its  complete- 
ness," in  the  light  of  its  final  or  latest  result. 

We  cannot,  of  course,  speak  of  the  creation  as 
complete,  but  its  highest  product  in  our  part  of  the 
universe  is  human  personality  and  human  society. 

All  tended  to  mankind 
And,  mankind  produced,  aU  has  its  end  thus  far: 
But  in  completed  man  begins  anew 
A  tendency  to  God. 

So  Browning's  Paracelsus,  and  laborious  philoso- 
phy supports  his  swift  and  sure  intuition.  The  logic 
of  this  view  is  absolutely  inescapable.  It  is  not 
merely  permissible:  it  is  imperative.  He  who 
ignores  or  fails  to  use  it  leaves  the  highway  of  human 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  33 

thought.  Before  its  positive  significance  was  per- 
ceived many  minds  shrank  from  the  doctrine  of 
the  continuity  of  life  from  its  lowest  beginnings  to 
the  highest  personalities,  for  it  seemed  to  degrade 
life  by  assimilating  it  to  the  non-living  and  to  reduce 
man  to  a  part  of  nature  conceived  of  as  physical  and 
subhuman.  Only  later  was  it  realized  that  in  this 
case,  as  in  all  others,  the  truth  is  good  news,  and  that, 
since  nature  includes  humanity,  our  'thought  of 
nature  must  be  made  rich  enough  to  make  room  for 
spiritual  purposes." 

It  is  rational,  then,  to  conclude  that  ''human 
values  constitute  a  part  of  the  real  ends  of  the  uni- 
verse. "  The  power  behind  evolution  is  a  power  that 
has  produced  the  beautiful,  the  true,  the  good.  Our 
ideals  are  not  aliens  in  the  universe,  but  "genuine 
reaUties  organic  to  the  whole  of  Being."  What  the 
doctrine  of  evolution,  of  the  kinship  of  all  life,  and  of 
the  unity  of  man  with  nature  has  done  has  been  to 
transform  the  conception  of  nature.  It  is  seen  to  be 
not  lifeless  and  foreign  to  our  nature,  but  the  matrix 
of  our  highest  life.  It  seems  ahen  only  when  we 
contemplate  its  physical  aspects  and  ignore  or 
forget  its  values.  We  may  still  be  appalled  at  the 
extent  of  the  universe  in  space  and  time  and  momen- 
tarily terrified  at  the  conception  that  our  universe  of 
stars  strewn  along  the  milky  way  may,  from  a  suffi- 
cient distance,  appear  as  a  nebula,  that  it  may  in 
fact  be  but  one  of  the  many  thousands  of  nebulae 
which  have  been  discovered.     We  may  be  dizzy  and 


34  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

frightened  at  these  celestial  magnitudes  and  sidereal 
ages,  but  only  so  long  as  we  forget  that  the  reality 
which  is  so  overwhelming  in  its  physical  aspects  has 
also  produced  our  values,  that  out  of  it  have  come 
millions  of  noble  men  and  women  with  a  passion  for 
the  perfect  and  a  longing  for  the  conservation  of  the 
best. 

It  is  simple  fact  to  say  that  a  lily  flower  on  its 
stalk  in  June  is  not  more  truly  a  part  of  the  plant 
than  the  finest  men  and  women,  including  Jesus, 
are  organic  parts  of  nature.  And' since  Aristotle  was 
right  in  declaring  that  processes  must  be  estimated  by 
their  outcome,  we  are  bound  to  see  in  humanity  at 
its  highest  a  revelation  of  the  nature  of  nature,  and  in 
lives  Kke  that  of  Christ  a  revelation  of  the  nature  of 
human  nature.  In  other  words,  thought  justifies 
what  rehgion  beUeves,  namely,  that  reaHty  is  akin  to 
what  we  reverence  and  love.  The  humanly  best 
becomes  the  key  to  the  cosmos,  and  the  rehgious  view 
of  the  universe  is  true.  The  ideal  has  a  natural  basis, 
and  the  natural  is  capable  of  an  ideal  development. 
In  the  Hfe  that  for  Christendom  has  become  the 
symbol  of  the  divine  we  see  the  heart  of  the  world 
laid  bare,  "the  place  where  love  breaks  through." 
He  is  not  the  Great  Exception,  but  the  Great  Example, 
the  supreme  revelation  thus  far  of  the  nature  of  that 
nature  out  of  which  we  all  have  come.  Christianity 
and  Platonism  are  essentially  right:  at  the  heart  of 
reaHty  is  the  Good,  and  we  ourselves  are  real  in 
proportion  as  we  are  partakers  of  that  divine  reahty 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  35 

which  the  rehgious  nature  feels  to  be  behind  phe- 
nomena and  to  which  it  knows  that  it  is  akin. 

If  this  is  a  just  statement,  it  is  clear  that  the  unity 
and  spiritual  outcome  of  the  world-process  is  a  con- 
ception on  which  further  rehgious  life  and  progress 
depend.  It  is  true  that  in  the  past  the  temples  grew 
as  grows  the  grass,  and  that  the  religious  thoughts  and 
feelings  of  men  came  in  the  same  way,  but  that 
cannot  be  any  more.  For,  at  a  certain  point  this 
spontaneous  development  is  arrested,  namely,  at 
the  time  when  reflection  begins.  Religion  has  to 
make  terms  with  other  interests  in  Hfe.  A  problem 
arises  when  religion  is  threatened,  when,  for  instance, 
there  seems  to  be  no  place  for  it  in  the  scientific  view 
of  the  universe.  If  men  are  henceforth  to  be  at 
once  rational  and  sincere  and  rehgious,  it  is  obvious 
that  they  must  attain  to  a  world-view  in  which 
religion  has  its  place.  In  other  words,  for  reflective 
men  religion  inevitably  comes  to  depend  upon  a  phi- 
losophy of  religion. 

Besides  those  who  are  depressed  and  hindered  in 
their  aspiring  life  by  that  halfway  mode  of  thought 
which  we  have  called  naturalism,  there  are  many 
others  who  live  the  religious  life  but  support  and 
justify  it  by  a  dualistic  philosophy  which  is  constantly 
being  undermined  and  which  is  daily  becoming  more 
untenable.  They  protect  this  philosophy  from  criti- 
cism as  well  as  they  can,  for  they  suspect  its  inade- 
quacy, and  they  cling  to  it  tenaciously,  since  they 
have  no  other  support  for  a  precious  faith. 


36  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

According  to  this  dualistic  view,  now  obsolescent, 
nature  was  out  of  harmony  with  God  and  the  natural 
was  the  antithesis  of  the  divine.  The  realm  of  God 
was  the  supernatural.  He  was  not  in  the  order  of 
nature  but  in  exceptional,  extraordinary,  and  miracu- 
lous occurrences.  Nor  was  nature  regarded  as  a  coher- 
ent whole.     As  Sir  Henry  Jones  concisely  expresses  it: 

The  physical  sciences  worked  apart,  their  provinces  did 
not  intersect.  Physical  life  stood,  apparently,  unrelated  to 
its  material  substrate:  it  was  taken  as  a  clear  addition  to  it. 
Within  the  domain  of  the  physical  life  itself  there  were  fixed 
species,  each  of  them  describable  by  itself:  the  problem  of 
their  connection  was  not  raised.  Man  as  a  rational  and  respon- 
sible being  stood  aloof  from  all — an  exception  and  addendum 
to  the  natural  scheme.  Even  his  own  nature  was  riven  in 
two:  his  body  was  merely  the  tenement  of  his  soul.  On  all 
sides  there  were  interstices,  and  rifts,  and  opportunities  for 
miraculous  interventions — which  came.  For,  beyond  the 
natural  wo,rld  and  around  it,  ready  to  flow  in  upon  it  at  any 
moment,  there  was  another.  It  was  the  object  of  faith  rather 
than  knowledge,  of  spiritual  rather  than  natural  vision:  it  was 
dogmatically  asserted  on  the  one  side  and  meekly  accepted 
on  the  other.  God  dwelt  in  that  remote  region  of  moveless 
mystery,  in  sovereign  majesty  inscrutable:  "He  made  darkness 
his  secret  place:  his  pavilion  round  about  were  dark  waters 
and  thick  clouds  of  the  skies."  But  of  intrinsic  or  rational 
continuity  between  that  world  and  this,  there  was  none; 
and  experience  here  gave  b'ttle  clue  to  experience  there:  for 
was  not  experience  in  this  world  merely  natural,  and  spiritual 
experience  assumed  to  be  a  mystery  ?^ 

Clearly,  it  is  most  unfortunate  that  the  rehgious 
values,  faith,  hope,  love,  joy,  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit 
*  Idealism  as  a  Practical  Creed,  p.  236. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  37 

of  which  the  apostle  Paul  was  constantly  speaking, 
should  be  associated  with  such  a  view  of  the  world 
as  this — a  view  which  the  progress  of  thought  has 
doomed  to  extinction.  For  these  interstices  through 
which  God's  revelation  of  himself  were  beheved  to 
come  are  disappearing,  and  it  is  easy  to  understand 
what  the  situation  will  be  when  the  remaining  lacunae 
have  been  filled,  the  last  gap  closed.  Indeed,  we  are 
not  far  from  this  now.  For,  as  the  philosopher  just 
quoted  says : 

Belief  in  the  unity  of  the  natural  universe,  including  man, 
is  now  practically  universal  in  civilized  communities.  There 
are  neither  interstices  nor  rifts;  there  are  no  causes  without 
natural  consequences,  and  no  effects  without  natural  and 
necessary  antecedents — no  mere  accidents  anywhere.  The 
whole  scheme  is  compact  and  man  is  a  part  of  it.  His  psychical 
nature  is  inextricably  intertwined  with  his  bodily  frame; 
he  is  not  spirit  plus  soul  plus  body;  but  spirit,  soul,  and  body 
interfused;  a  sensuous-rational  being,  continuous  with  the 
world  in  which  he  Hves.    AH  being  is  of  one  tissue. 

It  is  obviously  useless  for  religious  men  who  know 
that  the  values  they  strive  to  promote  are  indis- 
pensable to  civilization  to  minimize  these  facts  or  to 
avert  the  necessary  conclusion.  What  is  needed  is  a 
new  interpretation.  And  this  the  philosophy  of 
religion  is  prepared  to  give.  In  these  apparently 
abstruse  matters  the  average  man  has  a  great  stake. 
On  the  issue  depends  his  view  of  life's  nature  and 
meaning  and  possibilities,  and  the  ultimate  result 
will  be  faith,  courage,  and  hope,  or  black  despair. 


38  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

For 

By  uniting  nature  to  man,  man  to  man,  and  all  with  God, 
Idealism  has  involved  all  that  exists,  or  that  man  can  conceive, 
in  one  doubtful  destiny.  There  is  no  picking  of  footsteps 
any  more,  nor  wary  walking  amidst  the  distinctions  of  artificial 
schemes:  the  whole  web  has  been  torn.  There  is  no  salvation 
now  by  partial  issues;  the  question  of  the  rectitude  and  sanity 
of  the  whole  order  of  reality  has  been  rais,ed,  and  there  remain 
but  two  alternatives — hope  which  cannot  despair,  or  despair 
which  cannot  hope.^ 

In  this  situation  it  is  clear  that  no  help  is  to  be 
looked  for  from  compromises  or  hybrid  schemes  or 
repairs  to  the  old  dualism.  Hope  lies  in  the  frank 
acceptance  of  the  unity  of  the  universe  for  v^hich 
science  stands  and  the  spiritual  outcome  of  the 
world-process  which  is  the  legitimate  and  necessary 
interpretation  of  the  facts  and  experience  of  human 
life.  When  we  fully  realize  that  "God  always  acts 
through  nature,  and  that  nature  at  its  highest  and 
best  is  always  the  manifestation  of  God's  character 
as  he  reveals  himself  to  us,  that  the  Divine  Spirit  is 
at  work  in  the  world  in  ways  that  are  natural  to  the 
world  and  to  men,"  we  have  an  interpretation  of 
nature,  human  life,  and  religion  that  is  more  beautiful 
and  significant  than  the  dualism  we  are  forced  to 
surrender,  and  that  has  besides  the  great  advantage  of 
being  true  and  concordant  with  the  ideas  that  rule 
the  modern  age. 

Since  God  is  in  the  order  and  not  in  the  exceptions, 
the  distinction  between  sacred  and  secular  is  abolished. 
All  history  becomes  sacred  and  humanity  a  divine 

^Idealism  as  a  Practical  Creed,  p.  247. 


TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  39 

incarnation.     Man  becomes  divine  in  proportion  as 
he  becomes  a  partaker  of  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and 
the   good.     His   rehgious   experience   is   as   natural, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  science,  as  is  his  physical 
life.     It  is  as  natural  to  be  good  in  the  higher  stages 
of  development  as  it  is  to  be  animal  and  savage  in  the 
lower.     Man  comes  to  himself  as  he  grows.     History 
is  the  revelation  of  his  nature,  of  the  divine  nature 
that  expresses  itself  in  him.     In  the  hght  of  this 
conception  we  must  revise  our  idea  of  the  Spirit. 
It  is  not  ''an  occasional  affiatus,"  but  the  immanent, 
ever  present  God  in  action,  the  ''very  warp  and  woof 
of   the  web"   of  man's  intellectual,   moral,   social, 
aesthetic,  and  rehgious  life. 

Beside  the  naturahsm  and  the  duahsm  of  which 
we  have  been  speaking,  there  are  other  views  and 
theories  of  Hfe,  both  scientific  and  philosophic,  which 
are  unfavorable  to  rehgion.     Some  of  them  threaten 
its  continued  existence.     It  will  be  instructive  to 
consider  briefly  how  rehgious  values  are  affected  by 
certain  current  tendencies  ui  psychology,  the  psy- 
chology  of   rehgion,   theology,   and   the  philosophy 
imphcit  in  the  democratic  aspirations  of  our  time. 
Take  the  case  of  psychology  first.    Those  who  are 
engaged  m  research  in  this  field  are  not  inspired  by 
antipathy  toward  rehgion.    They  are  seeking  truth, 
yet  if  we  forget,  as  too  many  do  forget,  that  the 
behaviorists  are  studying  only  one  aspect  of  human 
life  by  certam  methods  appropriate  to  that  study, 
and  if  we  assume  that  what  they  ignore  does  not 


40  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

exist  or  has  no  significance,  it  is  obvious  that  reHgion 
will  appear  to  be  concerned  with  what  is  unreal. 
It  is  not  merely  that  in  these  studies  of  the  responses 
made  by  the  human  body  to  its  surroundings  there 
is  no  question  of  a  soul.  Consciousness  itself  has 
become  irrelevant.  Thus  in  his  recent  volume, 
Psychology  from  the  Standpoint  oj  the  Behaviorist, 
Professor  John  B.  Watson,  of  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity, explicitly  says: 

The  reader  will  find  no  discussion  of  consciousness  and  no 
reference  to  such  terms  as  sensation,  perception,  attention, 
will,  image,  and  the  like.  These  terms  are  in  good  repute, 
but  I  find  I  can  get  along  without  them,  both  in  carrying  out 
my  investigation  and  in  presenting  psychology  as  a  system 
to  my  students.  I  frankly  do  not  know  what  they  mean  nor 
do  I  beUeve  that  anyone  else  can  use  them  consistently. 

In  other  words,  for  psychology  so  understood, 
consciousness  can  be  ignored  as  having  no  significance. 
Human  ideas  and  ideals,  loves,  hopes,  philosophy, 
and  the  passion  for  perfection  are  ignored.  The 
values  that  men  struggle  for  and  for  which  they 
gladly  give  up  their  lives  are  as  if  they  were  not  in 
this  study  of  the  physical  mechanism,  its  tendencies, 
and  its  responses.  Now  no  one  doubts  that  such  a 
study  may  throw  Hght  on  human  life,  and  everyone 
wishes  to  see  it  developed  to  the  utmost.  The 
serious  mistake  to  which  we  are  liable  is  the  very 
natural  one  of  regarding  as  unreal  what  we  are  not 
at  present  concerned  with  and  so  of  drawing  unwar- 
ranted negative  conclusions.  Because  values  and 
that  in  man  which  appreciates  values   cannot  be 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  41 

successfully  studied  by  the  methods  of  physical 
science  it  does  not  follow  that  they  are  not  real  and 
supremely  important.  To  be  scientific  is  not  the 
only  way  to  be  intelligent.  To  claim  that  behaviorism 
is  the  whole  of  psychology  and  that  consciousness 
may  be  excluded  from  its  investigations  is  to  make  a 
philosophy,  a  world-view,  of  a  severely  limited  con- 
ception of  life. 

A  colleague  of  Professor  Watson,  Professor  Arthur 
O.  Lovejoy,  has  seen  with  the  clearness  to  be  expected 
of  a  philosopher  the  real  significance  of  this  interesting 
movement.     He  says: 

Now  behaviorism  as  a  method  of  experimental  inquiry  in 
psychology  has  its  place  and  finds  practical  justification  in  its 
results.  But  behaviorism  as  a  metaphysics  is  simply  natural- 
ism gone  mad.  It  conceives  the  whole  process  of  consciousness 
in  terms  of  physical  stimulus  and  bodily  response.  It  recog- 
nizes in  the  experience  of  an  individual  no  elements  which  are 
not,  at  least  potentially,  wholly  open  to  the  direct  sensible 
observation  of  other  individuals — no  elements,  in  other  words, 
which  are  anything  more  than  visible  or  tangible  movements 
of  the  muscles  or  other  parts  of  the  animal  mechanism.  In 
all  this  it  incidentally  stultifies  itself;  for  the  behaviorist 
philosopher  puts  for^vard  his  doctrine  as  meaningful  and  true, 
and  as  reached  through  logical  processes — and  yet  truth  and 
meaning  can  have  no  place  among  the  strictly  behavioristic 
categories,  and  the  theory  cannot  recognize  any  such  thing  as 
the  determination  of  the  action  of  an  animal  (even  though  the 
animal  be  a  philosopher)  by  logical  reflection  as  such.  If  we 
apply  the  behaviorist's  principles  to  himself,  we  must  treat 
his  arguments  and  conclusions  merely  as  so  much  animal 
behavior,  that  is,  as  movements  of  the  muscles  of  (e.g.)  his 
throat  or  forearm  and  nothing  more.^ 

^Harvard  Theological  Review,  April  20,  1920,  p.  193. 


42  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

Life  is  behavior  but  it  is  not  human  life  unless  it 
is  more.  It  consists  in  part  of  adjustments  to  the 
material  universe,  but  the  highest  and  best  part  of  it 
is  a  striving  for  values.  Now  values  are  not  physical 
things;  they  do  not  exist  except  for  conscious  beings. 
Indeed,  they  would  not  exist  for  purely  cognitive 
beings  devoid  of  emotional  powers.  They  are  per- 
ceived only  when  they  are  felt.  This  is  as  true  of 
religious  values  as  of  others,  for  all  values  are  of  one 
family.  If  behaviorism  is  more  than  a  method,  if  it 
becomes  a  philosophy,  a  habit  of  mind,  it  is  obviously 
unfavorable  to  that  life  of  the  spirit  which  we  call 
religion,  since  this  lies  beyond  the  realm  of  which  it 
takes  account. 

Then,  there  is  the  psychology  of  religion  which, 
like  behaviorism,  is  making  a  contribution  to  our 
knowledge  of  human  life.  It  studies  the  religious 
emotions,  the  instincts,  the  order  of  human  develop- 
ment, the  evolution  of  man's  sense  of  the  divine  and 
of  his  thoughts  about  God.  In  this  way  it  renders  an 
indispensable  service.  But  occasionally  the  psy- 
chologist assumes  the  role  of  a  philosopher  and  falls 
into  one  of  the  pitfalls  along  the  philosophic  path.  He 
somewhat  uncritically  adopts  the  mistaken  view  that 
consciousness  knows  only  itself.  The  doctrine  that  we 
cannot  get  beyond  experience  he  interprets  as  meaning 
that  experience  is  only  of  itself,  and  that  therefore  we 
cannot  know  anything  about  God.  If  he  continues,  as 
he  often  does,  to  use  the  word  God,  he  means  nothing 
objective,  but  merely  a  feeling  or  concept. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  43 

But  this  is  merely  a  relapse  into  that  seductive 
but  false  theory  of  knowledge  which  has  troubled 
European  thought  for  so  long.  Now  to  be  a  victim 
of  this  illusion  is  no  longer  excusable.  It  is  to  live 
as  if  clear-sighted  men  such  as  Santayana  had  not 
written  a  page.  After  the  whole  matter  has  been 
cleared  up,  it  is  pathetic  to  see  men  holding  that 
''theory  of  knowledge  which  proclaims  that  knowledge 
is  impossible.  You  know  only  your  so-called  knowl- 
edge,  which  itself  knows  nothing The  mind 

knows  only  the  ideas  it  creates. "  This  "subjectivity 
of  thought,  this  philosophy  which  deliberately  limits 
itself  to  the  articulation  of  self-consciousness,  and 
considers  the  embroideries  it  makes  upon  a  dark 
experience,  and  for  which  the  self  is  shut  up  in  a 
closed  circle  of  experience,  admitting  of  no  relations 
with  anything  beyond,"  has  played  its  unhappy  part 
in  the  world  long  enough.  The  psychology  of  reli- 
gion does  not  justify  a  man  in  taking  a  position 
such  that  "when  he  speaks  of  anything — matter, 
God,  himself — he  means  not  that  thing  but  the  idea 
of  it." 

Professor  Santayana,  some  of  whose  expressive 
phrases  I  am  using,  says: 

Evidently  on  this  principle  none  of  Leibniz's  spirits  could 
know  any  other,  nor  could  any  phase  of  the  same  spirit  know 
any  other  phase.  The  unbridgeable  chasm  of  want  of  experi- 
ence would  cut  off  knowledge  from  everything  but  its  "con- 
tent," the  ideas  it  has  of  objects.  Those  fabled  external 
objects  would  be  brought  back  into  my  ideas,  and  identified 
with  them;  my  ideas  in  turn  would  be  drawn  in  and  identified 


44  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

with  the  fact  that  I  entertain  them  and  this  fact  would  condense 
into  the  more  intimate  and  present  fact  that  intensely,  vaguely, 
deeply  I  feel  that  I  ana,  or  am  tending  to  be,  something  or 
other.  My  Will,  or  Spirit,  the  rumble  of  my  unconscious 
appetitions,  thus  absorbs  my  ideas,  my  ideas  absorb  their 
objects,  and  these  objects  absorb  the  world,  past,  present  and 
future.  Earth  and  heaven,  God  and  my  fellowmen  are  mere 
expressions  of  my  Will,  and  if  they  were  anything  more,  I 
could  not  now  be  alive  to  their  presence. 

Life  is  short  and  the  number  of  fresh  hours  when 
the  mental  sky  is  clear  and  the  horizon  wide,  and 
when  we  are  therefore  competent  in  philosophy,  is 
few,  and  we  may  naturally  resent  having  to  consume 
some  of  them  in  showing  the  untenability  and  the 
temporary  character  of  theories  which  ignore  con- 
sciousness or  assume  that  we  are  shut  up  in  it,  which 
deny  the  efficacy  of  ideas  and  ideals  and  explain 
away  the  knowledge  of  objective  existence  and  the 
reality  of  Truth.  But  for  the  philosopher  of  religion, 
it  is  a  part  of  the  day's  work.  The  theories  in  question 
are  getting  out  among  the  people  just  about  the 
time  their  inadequacy  is  being  perceived  among  the 
thinkers,  and  the  impression  produced  is  unfavorable 
to  the  higher  interests  of  our  race.  For  religion, 
like  education,  does  not  promote  itself.  It  is  carried 
on  and  advanced  by  organized  effort.  And  the 
difficulties  we  have  been  speaking  of  are  part  of  what 
makes  the  work  of  the  churches  so  hard.  They  are 
puzzling  because  they  are  so  intangible  and  ill- 
understood.  The  present  slow  progress  of  the 
churches  is  not  wholly  their  fault.     Even  if  they  had 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  45 

fewer  literal-minded  men  in  the  pulpit,  if  they 
modernized  their  creeds  and  were  more  active  in 
social  service,  if  they  met  all  the  just  criticisms  passed 
upon  them,  they  would  find  the  promotion  of  religious 
values  in  this  age  very  difficult  because  of  strong 
thought  currents  which  run  in  the  contrary  direction. 
Of  these  counter  currents  the  most  important, 
perhaps,  is  that  which  we  must  now  attempt  to 
describe.  The  task  is  difficult  because  what  is  in 
question  is  a  view  of  life  which  has  never  been  clearly 
formulated  or  adequately  expressed,  but  which  is 
nevertheless  a  living  conviction  at  the  heart  of  the 
democratic  movement  of  our  time.  It  is  implicit  in 
the  efforts  that  are  being  made  toward  social  and 
poHtical  reconstruction,  in  ''the  latent  assumptions 
which  underlie  men's  judgments,  beliefs  and  ideals. '^ 
In  this  complex  of  massive  energies,  of  formative 
forces,  lies  what  Professor  George  Plimpton  Adams 
calls  the  ''idea  system"  of  our  age.  This  writer's 
Idealism  and  the  Modern  Age  is  the  most  successful 
recent  effort  to  state  the  problem  and  to  show  the 
tremendous  stake  the  average  man  has  in  its  correct 
solution.  It  is  a  definite  contribution  for  which  we 
should  be  grateful,  but  it  is  perhaps  possible  to  outline 
the  situation  more  concisely.  Certainly  he  is  right 
in  the  main  point,  that  until  modern  times  Western 
Europe  has  lived  in  the  faith  that  there  is  an  objective 
moral  order  in  which  it  is  man's  supreme  duty  and 
privilege  to  find  a  place.  For  the  ancient  and  even 
for  the  medieval  world  the  accepted  idea  was  that 


46  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

man's  essential  vocation  was  contemplation,  the 
knowledge  of  the  truth,  the  beatific  vision  of  beauty, 
goodness,  the  divine  reality.  He  was  to  find  out 
what  is  true  and  beHeve  it,  to  discover  beauty  and 
rejoice  in  it,  to  know  the  right  and  do  it. 

In  Christian  phrase,  man's  highest  good  was  to 
have  his  '^conversation  in  heaven,"  to  'live  as  seeing 
the  invisible, ' '  to  take  his  place  in  the  divine  order  by 
living  in  love  and  the  spirit  of  Christ.  For  Platonism 
there  was  an  objective  truth,  beauty,  and  goodness, 
which  man  imitates  and  in  which  he  participates  and 
into  the  likeness  of  which  through  adoring  contem- 
plation he  is  transformed. 

The  new  spirit  is  that  which  looks  up  at  nothing, 
which  worships  nothing,  but  which  aims  at  remaking 
the  human  world  to  the  end  that  human  desires  may 
be  more  fully  satisfied.  It  definitely  announced  and 
declared  itself  in  ''the  French  Revolution,  the  first 
mighty  upheaval  motived  by  the  conscious  con- 
viction that  the  only  social  order  fit  for  man  is  one 
which  he  himself  has  made  and  can  control,  and 
which  he  can  also  unmake  if  he  so  desires.  This 
conviction  is  but  democracy,  come  to  a  full  con- 
sciousness of  its  meaning  and  power."  This  aspira- 
tion to  revise  and  reconstruct  our  social  institutions 
is  one  that  we  all  share.  We  are  in  fact  committed  to 
democracy^  hut  we  are  not  committed  to  its  present 
understanding  of  itself  or  to  its  denials.  Granted 
that  the  social  order  must  be  remade,  the  ques- 
tion  arises   as   to  the  ideals  that  shall  guide    our 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  47 

reforming  activity  and  the  values  we  are  to  incor- 
porate. 

This  question  is  crucial  for  the  higher  life  of  our 
race.  For  the  answer  which  is  given  by  many 
spokesmen  for  democracy,  and  by  the  instrumentalists 
and  pragmatists,  is  that  we  have  nothing  to  consider 
but  the  satisfaction  of  our  desires.  The  problem  of 
Hfe,  they  say,  is  to  take  account  of  instinct  and 
impulse,  and  through  creative  intelligence,  to  secure 
their  maximum  satisfaction.  "The  mind  is  the 
voice  of  the  body's  interests."  It  is  in  the  same 
class  with  the  bodily  organs,  and  its  sole  business  is 
to  guide  organic  adjustments.  It  is  useful  to  get 
us  out  of  trouble.  But  it  is  not  for  love,  worship, 
contemplation  of  truth  and  beauty,  for  the  beatific 
vision.  To  understand  it  you  must  look  backward 
at  the  interests  it  serves,  not  forward  toward  the 
goodness  and  beauty  men  believe  in  and  for  which 
they  yearn. 

The  question  upon  which  so  much  depends  is  not 
whether  this  is  a  true  account  of  the  mind,  for  it  is 
obviously  in  part  true,  but  whether  it  is  a  complete 
account.  If  it  is  entirely  adequate,  if  this  is  all  there 
is  to  be  said,  then  it  is  clear  that  Platonism  and 
Christianity  are  wrong,  for  both  have  taught  that 
man's  mind  enjoys  the  privilege  of  ''participating  in 
objective,  significant  structures";  that  in  its  love 
of  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good  it  really  loves 
God;  that  the  goal  of  our  imperfect  loves,  is,  as 
Plato  taught,  the  vision  and  adoring  contemplation 


48  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

of  the  divine  beauty;  and  that  in  all  our  good  is 
*'the  Good,"  which  is  our  goal,  so  that  in  our  striving 
for  the  particular  excellences  that  attract  us  we  are 
^'like  children  chasing  butterflies  while  still  proceeding 
in  the  direction  of  home." 

Democracy  is  yet  too  young  to  have  carefully 
examined  the  philosophy  by  which  it  lives  and  which, 
if  uncorrected,  will  lead  to  disaster.  This  view  of 
the  mind,  according  to  which  life  is  response,  adapta- 
tion, behavior,  and  nothing  more,  concentrates  its 
attention  on  the  beginnings  of  life  and  ignores  or 
denies  the  objective  realities  which  are  the  concern 
of  Platonism,  the  most  vital  philosophy  in  the  world, 
and  of  Christianity,  the  religion  of  the  peoples  which 
have  built  civilization.  It  is  truly  said  that  prag- 
matism is  merely  the  denial  of  everything  Platonic, 
and  the  assumption  implicit  in  much  of  our  democracy 
that  there  is  nothing  objective  about  ethical  and 
rehgious  values  is  merely  the  denial  of  Christianity. 
Rev.  W.  R.  Inge  is,  therefore,  entirely  right  in 
saying  that  *^for  us  the  whole  heritage  of  the  past 
is  at  stake  together;  we  cannot  preserve  Platonism 
without  Christianity,  nor  Christianity  without  Platon- 
ism, nor  civilization  without  both. " 

For  to  this  insurrectionary  spirit  which  proposes 
to  accept  nothing  and  to  make  everything  the 
question  must  be  put.  Do  you  think  freedom  is 
caprice  and  that  emancipated  modernity  can  do 
anything  it  likes  or  that  the  majority  decrees  ?  -  Is 
there  nothing  objective  in  the  intellectual  and  moral 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  49 

order?  Did  you  make  and  can  you  change  the 
relation  of  the  diameter  of  a  circle  to  its  circumference  ? 
And  how  about  the  multiplication  table?  Now 
what  is  true  of  these  things  is  true  of  much  else 
besides,  not  only  in  the  realm  of  logical  relations  but 
in  that  of  beauty  and  goodness,  and  this  fact  must 
sometime  be  discovered  by  democracy  when  it  has 
put  down  all  its  opponents  and  set  about  the  work  of 
construction.  Until  it  realizes  this  truth  it  is  like 
the  crew  of  a  ship  at  sea  which  has  dismissed  its 
officers  and  assumes  that  it  can  safely  sail  in  any 
direction  so  long  as  all  agree  or  the  majority  directs. 
The  fact  is  that  the  most  democratic  people  will 
destroy  itself  as  certainly  as  any  other  if  it  considers 
only  how  it  may  satisfy  its  desires  and  fails  to  perceive 
its  ideal  goal.  There  is  one  thoroughfare  of  life,  and 
when  we  leave  it  we  are  about  as  free  as  a  locomotive 
is  when  it  leaves  the  rails  and  starts  off  across  country. 
The  effect  of  this  insurgent  spirit  on  theology  must 
be  noted  in  passing.  We  hear  much  of  democracy  in 
theology.  In  the  words  of  one  able  man, ''  God-head  is 
the  infinite  society  of  souls. "  Men  of  this  temper  will 
no  longer  sing  Sir  Robert  Grant's  magnificent  hymn: 

Oh,  worship  the  King,  all-glorious  above! 
Oh,  gratefully  sing  his  power  and  his  love ! 
Our  Shield  and  Defender,  the  Ancient  of  Days, 
Pavilioned  in  splendor,  and  girded  with  praise. 

Frail  children  of  dust,  and  feeble  as  frail, 
In  thee  do  we  trust,  nor  find  thee  to  fail; 
Thy  mercies  how  tender,  how  firm  to  the  end. 
Our  Maker,  Defender,  Redeemer,  and  Friend! 


50  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

It  is  to  be  recognized  that  this  is  not  mere  wilful- 
ness, for  there  is  another  influence  acting  upon  men 
that  affects  them  in  much  the  same  way.  The 
doctrine  of  the  immanence  of  God  has  made  a  deep 
impression  upon  the  modern  age,  but  in  accepting  it 
many  have  drawn  the  unwarranted  conclusion  that 
they  must  give  up  faith  in  transcendence.  It  has 
been  realized  that  a  transcendent  deity  whose  relation 
to  the  universe  and  man  is  purely  external  cannot 
longer  be  believed  in.  It  has  yet  to  be  brought  home 
to  our  consciousness  that  a  purely  immanental  view 
leaves  us  without  a  God  whom  we  can  worship,  since 
it  equates  God  and  nature  and  lands  us  in  an  unmoral 
pantheism.  It  is  a  corollary  of  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  that  nature  is  lower  than  man,  less  personal, 
less  God  than  we,  and  that  her  processes  are  no 
model  for  our  imitation.  It  is  not  the  function  of 
the  philosopher  of  religion  to  solve  all  theological 
problems,  but  he  may  properly  point  out  that  in 
accepting  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  immanence  it 
was  not  necessary  to  give  up  that  of  transcendence, 
and  that  both  are  necessary  to  the  life  of  religion. 
For  it  is  as  vain  to  try  to  worship  a  subhuman  urge, 
a  God  who  gropes  and  struggles  and  whose  purposes, 
if  he  has  any,  are  less  clear  than  our  own,  as  it  is  to 
glorify  a  mere  concept  and  enjoy  it  forever.  He 
surely  has  failed  to  read  aright  the  Christian  gospel, 
the  philosophy  of  Greece,  and  his  own  heart,  who 
does  not  understand  that  our  Father  is  the  Perfect 
and  that  we  Hve  and  advance  by  his  worship  and 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  51 

that  we  can  never  really  reverence  anything  else. 
God  is  truly  in  nature  and  in  man,  but  he  is  also 
the  perfect  truth,  beauty,  and  goodness  that  is  above 
our  world,  and  by  his  lure  draws  the  aspiring  human 
race  up  and  on. 

Although  this  truth  is  uncongenial  to  those  who 
do  not  like  to  hear  of  anything  above  them,  a  moral 
order  to  which  they  must  conform,  a  truth  which 
they  do  not  make  but  must  simply  accept,  or  an  ideal 
which  it  is  life  to  worship,  to  it  men  will  eventually 
return.  The  present  apparent  indifference  to  the 
values  represented  by  Platonism  and  Christianity, 
values  which  have  given  human  life  whatever  it  has  of 
nobility  and  beauty,  is  due  to  a  passing  mood  of  a 
vigorously  growing  but  still  immature  democracy 
which  has  not  yet  examined  and  criticized  the  implicit 
philosophy  by  which  it  lives,  and  in  part  also  to  the 
mistaken  impression  that  science  involves  the  view 
that  there  is  no  reality  except  matter  in  motion. 

This  mood  and  this  partial  view  may  be  expected 
to  pass  with  clearer  and  more  sequent  thinking.  We 
shall  regain  our  sense  of  proportion  and  understand 
that  the  significance  of  facts  is  not  less  real  than  the 
facts  themselves,  however  "brute''  and  material  the 
facts  may  be.  As  the  meaning  of  a  book  is  surely 
as  important  and  real  as  the  paper  and  printing,  so 
the  moral  ends  of  Hfe,  its  values  and  ideals,  are  not 
to  be  set  down  as  mere  epiphenomena  in  comparison 
with  its  physiology.  There  will  always  be  men  who 
mistake  the  surface  movements  of  thought  for  its 


52  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

deeper  current,  and  there  will  be  specialists  whose 
legitimate  business  is  to  investigate  one  aspect  of 
reality  at  a  time.  But  for  the  lives  that  count,  for 
the  men  and  women  who  do  the  work  of  the  world, 
who  maintain  its  homes  and  its  institutions,  facts 
will  continue  to  be  symbols  and  their  value  will  be 
estimated  by  their  meaning.  Aspiration  is  the 
promise  and  potency  of  all  progress,  and  aspiration 
perishes  when  it  ceases  to  have  a  sense  of  the  reality 
of  that  to  which  it  aspires.  And  when  it  ceases  to  be, 
humanity  will  be  dead,  for  ''we  live  by  the  passionate 
attempt  to  return  to  our  perfection,  by  the  radical 
need  of  losing  ourselves  again  in  God."  ^^ 

George  Rowland  Dodson 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 


OLD  TESTAMENT  STUDY  TODAY 

In  surveying  the  field  of  theological  study  we 
come  now  to  that  part  which  deals  with  the  Old 
Testament.  The  formulation  of  the  subject  implies 
that  here  as  elsewhere  the  present  is  different  from 
the  former  status  of  the  study,  in  other  words  that 
theological  science  is  progressive.  It  is  in  regard  to 
the  Old  Testament,  however,  that  this  assumption  of 
progress  has  been  most  energetically  opposed.  Here 
if  anywhere  it  has  been  felt  that  what  was  good 
enough  for  the  fathers  ought  to  satisfy  the  sons.  The 
book  with  which  we  deal  has  been  the  object  of 
serious  and  intensive  study  for  two  thousand  years. 
Jewish  Rabbis  made  it  their  life-work  to  understand 
and  expound  it;  the  Fathers  of  the  church  searched 
it  for  light  and  knowledge;  Schoolmen  and  reformers 
found  in  it  the  source  of  their  doctrine.  It  seems 
an  arrogant  assimiption  to  say  that  the  results  of  all 
this  study  are  not  sufficient  for  men  of  our  time,  and 
that  they  must  be  subjected  to  fresh  examination. 
Yet  this,  as  I  have  said,  is  the  impHcation  of  our 
topic,  an  implication  which  will  be  clear  to  anyone 
who  has  followed  the  course  of  theological  discussion 
during  recent  years.  Here  as  elsewhere  it  is  true  that 
science  is  not  static  but  dynamic. 

53 


54  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

This  antithesis  of  static  and  dynamic  seems  now 
to  be  in  many  minds.  The  Great  War  brought  home 
to  us  the  fact  that  we  are  Hving  in  a  world  of  change, 
and  that  many  institutions  which  we  had  looked  upon 
as  fixed  and  stable  are  subject  to  the  great  law  of 
flux  and  flow.  In  some  minds  the  result  has  been  to 
produce  a  certain  impatience  with  anything  which 
claims  to  have  permanence.  To  contrast  a  static 
church  with  a  dynamic  world,  for  example,  is  to 
condemn  the  church.  How  much  of  truth  there  may 
be  in  such  a  verdict  lies  outside  the  limits  of  our 
present  inquiry.  But  we  may  carry  the  antithesis 
over  into  our  present  domain,  and  suspect  that  some 
are  ready  to  assert  that  a  static  Bible  cannot  be  the 
subject  of  a  dynamic,  that  is  to  say  a  progressive, 
science.  Hence  they  would  remand  the  Bible  or  at 
least  the  older  half  of  it  to  the  scrap-heap,  and  turn 
to  something  of  more  modern  interest.  On  one 
hand,  then,  we  have  the  conservative,  insisting  that 
not  only  the  Bible  itself,  but  our  view  of  it  (the  view 
formulated  in  the  past),  must  be  accepted;  on  the 
other  hand  we  have  the  radical  who  will  have  nothing 
to  do  with  anything  so  old.  Let  us  mediate  between 
the  two  by  affirming  that  a  science  may  be  pro- 
gressive although  it  deals  with  facts  which  are  fixed 
and  unchangeable.  In  truth  all  the  historical  scien- 
ces are  in  this  class,  whether  they  deal  with  the 
world  of  nature  or  the  world  of  man.  Pardon  me 
if  I  illustrate  by  examples  which  are  perfectly 
familiar. 


TEE  OLD  TESTAMENT  55 

The  fossils  to  which  the  paleontologist  devotes 
his  Ufe  are  static,  if  anything  deserves  the  name. 
For  untold  millenniums  they  have  been  what  they 
now  are.  They  bear  witness  indeed  to  changes 
which  took  place  in  the  past — these  bones  were  once 
alive  and  attest  the  fact.  But  as  an  object  of  study 
they  are  fixed  and  unchangeable.  Yet  the  science 
which  deals  with  them  is  changing  from  generation 
to  generation  and  reveals  to  us  things  of  which  our 
fathers  did  not  dream.  It  is  the  same  with  our 
study  of  human  history.  The  documents  on  which 
we  base  our  inductions  come  from  the  distant  past, 
and  it  is  beyond  our  power  to  change  them.  To 
tamper  with  them  is  indeed  to  violate  the  scientific 
conscience.  But  the  history  that  deals  with  them  is 
re-written  by  each  new  generation  of  inquirers.  And 
in  spite  of  the  eagerness  of  our  younger  scholars  to 
deal  with  Hve  issues  and  to  let  the  dead  past  bury  its 
dead,  one  thing  stands  out  pretty  clearly:  that 
historical  study  was  never  more  ahve  than  it  is  today. 
To  a  great  extent  the  intellectual  effort  of  our  time  is 
devoted  to  the  study  of  origins.  It  is  not  without 
reason  that  the  most  influential  book  of  the  nineteenth 
century  bears  the  name  The  Origin  of  Species. 
Progress  consists  not  in  ignoring  the  past  but  in  the 
more  intensive  study  of  it,  leading  to  a  better  appre- 
hension of  the  path  along  which  humanity  has  moved 
in  reaching  the  state  in  which  we  now  find  it. 

These  general  remarks  will  be  seen  to  bear  directly 
upon  our  subject  when  I  say  that  the  best  adjective 


56  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

to  describe  the  Old  Testament  study  of  our  time  is 
just  the  adjective  historical.  To  put  it  succinctly, 
let  us  say  our  study  is  historical  rather  than  dogmatic. 
The  time  is  not  very  remote  when  the  chief  interest  of 
those  who  studied  the  Bible  was,  strictly  speaking, 
dogmatic.  Samuel  Hopkins,  the  well-known  leader 
of  New  England  thought  something  over  a  century 
ago,  began  his  series  of  pubhshed  sermons  with  this 
statement:  ^'The  Bible  contains  a  system  of  con- 
sistent important  doctrines  which  are  so  connected 
and  impHed  in  each  other  that  one  cannot  be  so 
well  understood  if  detached  from  all  the  rest."  This 
sentence  might  stand  as  the  motto  of  almost  all  the 
works  devoted  to  bibHcal  science  throughout  the 
Christian  centuries  down  to  the  present  time.  It 
impHes  of  course  that  the  duty  of  all  right-thinking 
men  is  to  ascertain  and  accept  the  philosophy,  that 
is,  the  system  of  important  doctrines,  revealed  in  the 
sacred  book.  Down  almost  to  our  own  time  this  was 
the  accepted  view.  Men  came  to  the  Bible,  perhaps 
not  with  the  only  purpose,  but  at  least  with  the 
main  purpose,  of  discovering  the  philosophy  divinely 
revealed  therein.  Here  in  this  book  they  expected 
to  discover  all  that  they  needed  to  know  about  the 
nature  of  God,  the  nature  of  man,  the  method  of  the 
divine  government  of  the  world,  and  the  law  which 
the  divine  Ruler  has  promulgated  for  the  conduct  of 
his  creatures.  To  put  it  somewhat  crudely,  the 
Bible  was  regarded  as  a  collection  of  prooftexts  for 
the  teacher  of  dogmatic  theology.     It  did  not  seem  to 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  57 

shake  men's  confidence  in  this  method  of  treatment 

when  the  result  was  found  to  be  that  each  theologian 

found  his  own  system  confirmed  by  the  sacred  book, 

in  other  words  that  each  one  brought  his  system  with 

him,  and  sought  to  discover  his  leading  ideas  in  the 

text  he  was  studying.     This  fact  could  not  altogether 

escape  observation,   however,   and  it  was  a  Swiss 

theologian  of  the  eighteenth  century  who  uttered  the 

well-known  epigram: 

Hie  liber  est  in  quo  sua  quaerit  dogmata  quisque 
Invenit  et  par  iter  dogmata  quisque  sua. 

In   the  majority  of   theological   schools  of   this 

country  the  necessity  of  a  purely  historical  study  of 

the  Old  Testament  is  now  so  fully  recognized  that  it  is 

difiicult  for  us  to  realize  how  comparatively  modern 

this  method  is.     Oral  tradition  ascribes  to  Lyman 

Beecher  this  remark,  addressed  to  his  class  in  theology: 

So  long  as  men  came  to  the  Bible  to  find  support  for  their 
own  doctrines  it  was  impossible  to  get  right  views  of  what  the 
Bible  really  means.  It  was  only  when  the  Germans  began  to 
investigate  the  book  as  they  would  investigate  Homer,  not 
caring  what  doctrine  it  contains,  that  we  began  to  get  Ught  on 
its  meaning. 

This  declaration  indicates  the  dawn  of  more  correct 
views  concerning  biblical  study,  and  it  must  have  been 
made  about  the  time  of  the  founding  of  the  Meadville 
Theological  School.  At  any  rate,  the  change  from 
the  dogmatic  to  the  historical  treatment  of  the 
Bible  (so  far  as  this  country  is  concerned)  has  taken 
place  during  the  life  of  this  institution.     It  was  in 


58  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

the  year  1843  that  Theodore  Parker  published  a 
translation  of  De  Wette's  Introduction  to  the  Old 
Testament,  almost  the  first,  if  not  quite  the  first, 
book  to  call  the  attention  of  American  scholars  to 
the  critical  problems  presented  by  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures.  The  book  to  be  sure  made  little  impres- 
sion at  the  time,  and  almost  a  quarter  of  a  century 
passed  before  theological  professors  and  students  had 
their  attention  again  called  forcibly  to  critical  ques- 
tions. But  at  least  a  beginning  was  made  as  early 
as  the  date  I  have  named,  and  when  the  first  inertia 
was  overcome  progress  was  rapid,  until  now  we  may 
say  that  the  historical  method  is  fairly  established. 
Going  now  a  little  more  into  detail  and  attempting 
to  define  what  we  mean  by  historical  study  we  note 
that  history  begins  with  criticism.  To  say  that 
historical  research  is  critical  rather  than  traditional 
is  but  a  commonplace.  But  it  needs  to  be  said 
nevertheless,  for  reluctance  to  apply  critical  methods 
to  a  sacred  book  is  openly  expressed  or  secretly  felt 
by  many  to  whom  the  Bible  is  a  treasured  possession 
and  just  because  it  is  a  treasured  possession.  The 
misapprehension  of  what  criticism  is  may  be  attrib- 
uted in  part  to  the  currency  of  the  phrase  *' Higher 
Criticism,"  which  as  it  happens  was  first  used  of 
modern  biblical  study.  This  phrase  seemed  to 
assert  some  sort  of  superiority  on  the  part  of  those 
who  used  it,  as  though  they  arrogated  the  right  to  sit 
in  judgment  on  the  authors  of  the  Hebrew  books. 
The  simple  fact  is  that  criticism  is  only  the  careful 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  59 

examination  of  the  facts  on  which  any  science  is 
built  up.  Reflecting  on  the  progress  of  the  natural 
sciences  we  see  that  astronomy,  for  example,  has  no 
new  phenomena  at  its  disposition — the  heavenly 
bodies  are  just  what  they  always  have  been,  certainly 
what  they  have  been  ever  since  man  came  upon  the 
earth.  The  progress  of  astronomy  has  been  due  to 
the  more  careful  examination  of  the  phenomena. 
In  like  manner  the  fossils  of  the  geologist  are,  as  we 
have  already  noticed,  the  same  that  they  have  been 
for  ages.  If  we  no  longer  adduce  them  as  evidence 
of  the  Noachian  deluge  it  is  because  we  have  examined 
them  more  carefully.  This  careful  examination  of 
the  facts  when  carried  over  into  the  domain  of 
archaeology  and  history  is  criticism.  Ancient  docu- 
ments must  submit  to  it  as  well  as  ancient  remains  of 
organic  life. 

Let  us  frankly  admit  that  in  a  certain  sense 
criticism  is  apt  to  be^estructive.  In  the  case  just 
supposed  our  modern  science  has  destroyed  the 
argument  for  the  universality  of  the  deluge,  so  far  as 
that  argument  was  drawn  from  certain  fossil  remains. 
This  is  what  we  mean  when  we  say  that  our  study 
is  critical  rather  than  traditional.  About  an  ancient 
document,  especially  one  that  has  been  the  object  of 
affectionate  interest,  there  gathers  a  body  of  supple- 
mentary matter  which  seems  to  possess  authenticity 
because  of  its  connection  with  the  original  nucleus 
to  which  it  has  attached  itself.  The  incurable 
curiosity  of  men  concerning  their  own  past  leads 


6o  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

them  to  supply  gaps  in  their  information  by  products 
of  their  own  imagination.  Thus  the  early  history 
of  Rome  became  an  interesting  story  by  the  inter- 
mingling of  fact  and  fancy,  and  the  task  of  the 
historian  who  took  himself  seriously  was  to  separate 
the  two  elements  and  indicate  the  true  nature  of  each. 
The  result  was  to  a  certain  extent  negative,  and  the 
sentimental  reader  might  be  inclined  to  sigh  over 
the  loss  of  romance  in  the  narrative.  Something  of 
the  same  effect  is  produced  by  the  application  of  histor- 
ical methods  to  the  Scriptures.  These  Scriptures  have 
been  the  object  of  devoted  study  for  two  thousand 
years.  It  was  to  be  expected  in  the  nature  of  the 
case  that  a  tradition  should  attach  itself  to  them. 
Especially  when  they  were  used  for  edification  and 
furnished  texts  for  sacred  oratory,  the  endeavor  was 
made  to  fill  out  the  silences  of  the  narrative  by  use 
of  the  imagination.  The  preacher  who  stimulates 
the  zeal  of  his  hearers  by  holding  up  the  example  of 
Moses  may  not  be  content  with  the  simple  Scripture 
statement  that  the  Hebrew  boy  was  adopted  by  the 
princess  who  found  him  among  the  bulrushes;  he 
may  describe  at  length  the  luxurious  surroundings 
into  which  the  boy  was  introduced  in  the  royal  palace, 
and  even  intimate  that  the  Pharaoh  became  so  fond 
of  him  that  he  destined  him  to  be  his  heir  and  suc- 
cessor. Undoubtedly  the  self-sacrifice  of  the  man 
who  chose  to  suffer  affiiction  with  the  people  of  God 
rather  than  to  enjoy  the  pleasure  of  sin  for  a  season  is 
brought  into  a  stronger  light  by  this  embelHshment, 


TEE  OLD  TESTAMENT  6i 

but  a  sober  criticism  will  compel  the  hearer  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  material  of  the  original  nar- 
rative, and  that  which  the  orator  has  added  from  his 
own  imagination.  The  history  of  Old  Testament 
interpretation  shows  that  this  sort  of  imaginative 
exegesis  has  gone  on  in  each  succeeding  age.  Each 
age  has  had  its  own  method  of  study,  and  a  certain 
amount  of  accretion  has  been  handed  on  from  one 
age  to  another.  All  this  material  has  its  value,  of 
course,  and  has  its  place  in  the  history  of  human 
thought.  But  the  historian  must  discover  its  true 
nature  and  not  confound  it  with  the  text  on  which 
it  is  based.  To  do  this  he  uses  the  critical  method, 
and  while  I  have  allowed  that  the  result  is  in  a 
certain  sense  destructive,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that 
the  critic  does  not  actually  destroy  anything.  Text 
and  tradition  are  all  there;  all  that  the  critical 
method  does  is  to  bring  the  different  elements  into 
their  proper  relations  of  space  and  time. 

In  a  truly  historical  treatment  of  an  ancient  text 
criticism  is  the  first  requisite.  In  the  second  place 
let  us  notice  that  this  method  is  comparative  instead 
of  segregative.  You  do  not  need  to  be  told  that  in 
the  view  of  earlier  scholars,  and  even  of  many  at  the 
present  day,  a  sharp  line  of  demarcation  must  be 
drawn  between  the  Bible  and  all  other  books.  This 
book  received  the  name  Holy  or  Sacred,  and  all  that 
was  connected  with  it  was  described  in  the  same  way. 
Thus  we  had  a  sacred  history,  a  sacred  archaeology, 
a  sacred  geography.     The  land  of  Israel  became  the 


62  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

Holy  Land.  The  implication  was  that  while  Israel, 
its  literature,  its  land,  and  its  institutions  were  made 
the  object  of  a  special  divine  activity,  all  the  rest  of 
mankind  was  left  without  guidance,  to  struggle  on 
by  the  meager  light  of  nature  which,  although  suffi- 
cient to  insure  the  condemnation  of  those  who  neg- 
lected it,  could  not  lead  men  to  any  real  virtue  or 
true  happiness.  At  the  present  day  we  cannot  thus 
isolate  Israel  from  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  In  a 
sense  the  isolation  has  never  been  as  complete  as  the 
adjectives  I  have  quoted  might  suggest.  It  has 
always  been  known  that  the  external  history  of 
Israel  was  connected  with  that  of  other  nations — so 
much  is  revealed  by  the  Bible  itself.  In  it  we  read 
of  Egypt,  Assyria,  and  Babylon,  as  well  as  of  the 
smaller  nations  with  which  Israel  came  into  immediate 
contact.  To  this  extent  the  comparative  study  of 
the  Old  Testament  is  nothing  new.  Eusebius  made 
a  serious  attempt  to  bring  the  history  of  Israel  into 
connection  with  that  of  the  other  nations,  and  many 
later  authors  have  treated  the  connection  of  sacred 
and  profane  history  (as  the  phrase  was).  The 
advantage  of  our  own  age  is  that  we  have  a  greatly 
increased  amount  of  material  by  which  to  judge  the 
closeness  of  the  connection.  The  decipherment  of 
the  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  inscriptions  has  not 
only  enriched  our  knowledge,  but. has  compelled  us 
to  modify  our  view  of  the  reliability  of  the  Hebrew 
text.  In  the  matter  of  chronology,  for  example,  we 
are  no  longer  able  to  make  the  Old  Testament  data 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  67, 

furnish  the  framework  into  which  the  chronology 
of  the  other  ancient  writers  can  be  fitted.  Conscien- 
tious students  of  the  Bible,  while  not  yielding  all  the 
claims  of  the  pan-Babylonians,  must  take  cognizance 
of  all  the  material  now  within  our  reach,  and  decide 
how  far  it  compels  a  modification  of  Israel's  external 
history.  Even  more  serious  than  the  reconstruction 
of  the  external  history  is  the  light  thrown  by  these 
researches  on  the  social  evolution.  It  is  now  seen 
that  those  social  institutions  which  the  Hebrew 
writers  themselves  regarded  as  something  established 
by  direct  divine  command  were  in  many  cases  the 
product  of  the  same  economic  and  political  forces 
which  were  at  work  among  the  surrounding  nations. 
The  view  of  the  Hebrew  writers  concerning  the 
divine  origin  of  their  institutions,  especially  of  their 
legislation,  is  now  seen  to  have  been  the  view  of 
other  ancient  authorities.  Moses  claims  that  the 
Law  comes  to  him  from  Israel's  God;  in  like  manner 
Hammurabi  asserts  that  Anu  and  Bel  called  him  to 
cause  justice  to  prevail  in  the  land,  and  to  this  end 
he  promulgates  the  code  which  will  accomphsh  the 
purpose  of  the  gods.  Nor  is  this  the  only  way  in 
which  ancient  literary  methods  are  seen  to  be  common 
to  the  Hebrews  and  other  nations.  The  attribution 
of  sacredness  to  a  book  is  now  known  to  be  a  frequent 
phenomenon  in  literary  history.  The  sharp  distinc- 
tion between  sacred  and  profane  is  fundamental  to 
all  religious  thinking,  from  the  most  primitive  to  the 
most  advanced.     Not  in  Israel  only  do  we  find  sacred 


64  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

places,  sacred  rites,  sacred  persons,  sacred  implements, 
and  sacred  books.  And  in  many  cases  the  sacredness 
of  Israel's  rites  originated  outside  of  Israel.  Circum- 
cision is  a  rite  found  among  many  peoples,  as  in  fact 
the  biblical  writers  knew.  The  stone  which  Jacob 
set  up  as  a  House-of-God  was  one  of  many  similar 
menhirs  which  are  found  all  over  the  Eastern  Con- 
tinent. The  sanctuary  at  Gilgal  was  doubtless 
marked  off  by  a  circle  of  stones  belonging  to  the 
class  of  cromlechs,  of  which  the  most  conspicuous 
example  is  known  to  us  by  the  name  of  Stonehenge. 
The  sacred  dance  about  the  altar,  the  hair-offering 
of  the  Nazirite,  sacrificial  worship — all  these  we 
find  elsewhere  as  well  as  in  Israel.  So  with  the 
literature.  The  story  of  the  creation  and  of  the 
deluge  were  borrowed  from  sources  outside  of  Israel. 
The  biblical  writers,  like  Homer,  took  their  material 
wherever  they  found  what  was  suitable  for  their 
purpose,  and  did  not  find  it  less  sacred  because  it 
came  from  a  foreign  source.  Even  the  compilatory 
method  by  which  many  Old  Testament  books  reached 
their  present  form,  and  which  many  readers  are 
disposed  to  ridicule  as  the  invention  of  the  critics,  is 
paralleled  by  what  we  find  in  other  ancient  literatures. 
The  most  serious  modification  of  traditional  ideas 
comes  when  we  thus  apply  the  comparative  method 
to  religious  beliefs  and  custom.  So  far  as  the  paral- 
lels between  Israelite  and  gentile  rites  were  observed 
by  earlier  scholars,  these  scholars  were  able  to  entertain 
hypotheses  which  we  find  no  longer  tenable.    They 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  65 

were  able  to  affirm  either  that  the  institutions  of 
Israel  were  the  originals,  and  those  of  other  nations 
were  borrowed;  or  else  that  the  devil  had  been  God's 
ape,  imitating  his  ordinances  in  order  to  lead  men 
astray.     Later  the  theory  was  advanced  that  God 
made  some  concessions  to  the  IsraeUtes,   allowing 
them  to  continue  certain  customs  with  which  they 
had  become  famiUar  in  Egypt,  lest  the  prohibition 
of  them  should  drive  the  people  away  from  their  own 
sanctuary.     Modern  bibHcal  science  finds  itself  unable 
to    adopt    either    theory.     It    recognizes    that    the 
reHgious  development  of  Israel  followed  the  lines 
traced   by   other   rehgions,    and   that   the   reHgious 
impulse  which  was  the  underlying  motive  in  Israel 
is  the  same  which  we  recognize  in  the  history  of  other 
peoples.     It  is  no  longer  possible,  therefore,  to  make 
a  sharp  division  between  true  and  false  rehgions, 
putting    our    own    (with    its    preHminary    stage    in 
Judaism)  in  one  class  and  all  the  rest  in  the  other. 
We  do  not,  however,  confound  all  rehgions  in  one 
indistinguishable  mass,  as  though  they  were  of  equal 
value.     The  complaint  is  sometimes  heard  that  the 
comparative  study  of  rehgion    smothers   our    God 
in  the  cloud  of  incense  offered  to  all  the  di\dnities 
of  all  the  nations  at  once.     There  are  degrees  of 
value  even  in  objects  of  the  same  class.     He  who 
investigates  all  rehgions  need  not  be  disloyal  to  his 
own,  any  more  than  he  who  writes  the  history  of 
foreign  coimtries  needs  to  lay  aside  his  affection  for 
the  land  in  which  he  was  brought  up.     This  is  not 


66  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

the  place  to  enlarge  upon  this  theme.  All  that  we 
are  now  concerned  to  notice  is  that  the  bibUcal  science 
of  today,  if  it  is  to  be  a  real  science,  must  use  Uie 
comparative  method. 

From  what  has  been  said  it  will  appear  in  the  next 
place  that  modern  biblical  science  must  be  evolu- 
tionary rather  than  catastrophic.  If  anyone  has  a 
repugnance  to  the  word  evolutionary  let  him  say 
developmental.  What  is  important  may  be  illus- 
trated again  by  the  science  of  geology.  In  the  early 
stages  of  that  science  it  was  thought  that  each  epoch 
of  the  earth's  history  was  marked  off  by  a  convulsion 
of  nature  which  wiped  out  the  existing  fauna  and 
flora,  and  that  the  next  period  was  ushered  in  by  a 
new  creation.  Today,  although  the  occurrence  of 
earthquakes  and  tornadoes  is  not  ignored,  changes  in 
the  earth's  surface  and  in  its  inhabitants  are  not 
supposed  to  have  been  wrought  for  the  most  part 
by  these  violent  convulsions.  Much  more  effective 
have  been  the  less  noticeable  forces  which  are  con- 
stantly at  work  both  in  the  inanimate  and  in  the 
animate  world.  Biblical  science  has  passed  through 
similar  phases.  The  older  view,  which  indeed  found 
support  in  the  Bible  itself,  was  that  violent  inter- 
positions of  divine  power  marked  the  different  stages 
of  Israel's  history.  The  beginning  was  made  by  the 
act  of  creation,  which  was  compressed  into  a  single 
week  of  time.  Then  the  world  of  man  was  left  to 
its  own  devices  until  its  condition  demanded  another 
signal  display  of  divine  power  at  the  deluge.     This 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  67 

was  followed  by  some  centuries  of  what  we  should 
call  natural  development,  terminating  in  a  new  act 
of  God — the  call  of  Abraham  to  inaugurate  a  new 
dispensation.  A  third  stage  was  marked  by  the 
even  more  startling  episode  at  the  Exodus,  and  by 
this  a  complete  and  perfect  constitution  was  set 
before  the  people  by  divine  fiat.  From  this  time  on 
there  seemed  to  be  no  possibility  except  that  the 
people  should  either  be  obedient  to  the  divine  statutes 
or  recreant  to  their  trust.  In  fact  the  biblical 
writers,  or  rather  the  latest  editors  of  the  history, 
believed  that  the  course  of  events  showed  nothing 
like  what  we  call  progress;  it  was  a  succession  of 
backslidings  and  revivals,  culminating  in  the  great 
disaster  which  put  an  end  to  the  national  existence. 
How  incomprehensible  this  scheme  is  to  men  trained 
in  modern  methods  of  inquiry  I  need  not  point  out. 
And  on  examining  our  documents  we  find  abundant 
evidence  that  this  emphasis  of  a  few  decisive  inter- 
ventions of  Providence  is  only  the  theory  of  a  few 
late  writers,  and  that  reading  between  the  lines  we 
can  get  a  juster  view.  While  there  were  certain  great 
crises  in  the  history,  progress  (for  there  was  real 
progress)  for  the  most  part  was  due  to  the  constant 
action  of  unobtrusive  social  forces — the  same  that 
we  discover  in  the  advance  of  mankind  elsewhere. 
Here  also  the  rule  was:  First  the  blade,  then  the  ear, 
then  the  full  grain  in  the  ear. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  development  was 
without  conflict.    The  developmental  theory  itself 


68  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

assumes  that  progress  is  by  struggle  and  the  survival 
of  the  fittest.  But  the  struggle  was  not  the  single 
dramatic  campaign  by  which  later  writers  liked  to 
think  that  the  land  of  Canaan  was  swept  clear  of 
the  earlier  inhabitants  and  given  to  Israel.  Battles 
there  were  of  course;  once  or  twice  the  tribes  gathered 
all  their  forces  and  inflicted  a  defeat  on  their  enemies. 
But  for  the  most  part  the  conquest  was  by  a  com- 
paratively peaceful  penetration,  extending  over  a  long 
period  of  time.  Politically  this  is  of  less  importance 
to  us  than  the  interplay  of  social  forces  by  which 
the  religion  of  Israel  reached  its  full  development. 
The  elaborate  legislation  of  the  Pentateuch,  as  we 
now  see,  was  not  revealed  all  at  once,  a  complete 
code,  ritual  and  moral,  promulgated  at  the  beginning 
of  the  nation's  life.  It  was  a  growth,  the  result  of  a 
struggle  between  higher  and  lower  conceptions  in 
ethics  and  reHgion,  a  struggle  carried  on  for  a  thousand 
years.  And,  as  in  other  communities,  the  fact  of 
struggle  involved  alternations  of  ebb  and  flow. 
Progress  was  not  continuous  nor  was  it  in  a  straight 
line.  Early  ideas  persisted  even  after  higher  ones 
seemed  to  have  triumphed.  At  almost  the  latest 
period  we  learn  of  members  of  the  community  who 
engaged  in  the  crude  superstitions  of  their  ancestors; 
who  ate  swine's  flesh  and  had  the  broth  of  abominable 
things  in  their  vessels,  who  lodged  in  the  sepulchers 
and  sat  among  graves,  evidently  devoted  to  the  ani- 
mistic and  totemistic  rites  which  characterize  the  re- 
ligion of  primitive  society. 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  69 

Our  interest,  I  need  hardly  say,  is  in  the  distinct- 
ness with  which  the  religious  struggle  is  set  forth  in 
the  documents  we  study,  and  this  struggle  is  revealed 
to  us  by  our  modern  method.  In  the  history  of 
Israel  as  we  now  read  it  we  see  more  clearly  than 
anywhere  else  the  process  by  which  ethical  mono- 
theism triumphed  over  the  lower  forms  of  religion. 
And  this  history  brings  home  to  us  the  fact  that 
spiritual  leadership  is  necessary  to  any  real  advance 
in  reHgion  and  morals.  The  heroes  of  Israel  are  not 
great  captains  with  their  swords  and  spears,  though 
here  as  elsewhere  the  soldier  who  risked  his  life  in 
defense  of  his  home  and  clan  received  due  recognition. 
Greater  heroes  are  the  prophets  who,  in  the  strength 
of  a  good  conscience  and  in  rehance  on  a  God  of 
righteousness,  throw  themselves  against  a  false 
reHgiosity  and  the  social  e\dls  of  their  times.  Such 
are  the  prophets  whose  works  we  study,  and  we 
appreciate  them,  or  at  least  we  appreciate  them 
fully,  only  when  we  get  the  true  course  of  history 
before  us.  I  do  not  wish  to  make  extravagant 
claims.  No  doubt  pious  readers  of  the  Bible  have 
always  had  a  sympathetic  appreciation  of  these 
great  preachers  of  righteousness.  Yet  it  remains 
true  that  in  the  traditional  biblical  science  the 
personahty  of  the  prophets  was  obscured  by  theo- 
logical prepossessions.  If  the  Bible  is  regarded  as  a 
series  of  prooftexts,  divinely  given  to  estabHsh  a 
system  of  doctrine,  then  differences  in  the  human 
personalities  through  whom  the  revelation  is  given 


70  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

sink  into  insignificance.  The  systematic  theologian 
seeks  for  the  faith — the  dogmatic  faith — once  for  all 
deHvered  to  the  saints.  If  this  faith  is  necessary  to 
salvation,  then  it  must  have  been  revealed,  at  least 
in  substance,  to  Adam  (if  indeed  Adam  was  saved), 
certainly  to  Abraham,  then  to  Moses,  after  him  to 
David  and  the  prophets.  On  this  theory  the  function 
of  the  prophet  is  to  act  as  a  commentator  on  the 
revelation  already  given  to  his  predecessors.  In 
fact  Jewish  expositors,  followed  by  some  Christian 
scholars,  regard  the  work  of  the  prophets  as  wholly 
subordinate,  secondary  to  that  of  Moses. 

How  foreign  to  a  real  historical  apprehension  of 
the  Old  Testament  is  this  theory  of  a  system  of 
doctrine — quod  semper,  quod  ubique,  quod  ah  omnibus 
— I  need  hardly  point  out.  To  the  modern  student 
the  great  outstanding  fact  in  the  history  of  Israel  is 
the  originality  of  the  prophets.  These  great  religious 
geniuses  gave  Israel  the  ideas  which  have  made 
Israel's  book  a  power  in  the  hearts  of  all  right-thinking 
men,  and  which  made  that  book  a  part  of  the  Christian 
Bible.  And  the  ideas  which  they  set  forth  are  not 
abstract  propositions,  the  product  of  philosophical 
speculation  on  the  nature  of  God  and  man.  They 
are  the  result  of  an  inward  struggle  in  which  faith 
contends  against  the  obtuseness  of  the  great  mass,  or 
against  temptations  to  doubt  concerning  God's 
righteous  government  of  the  world.  This  faith  it  is 
which  makes  these  men  leaders  and  reformers. 
Elijah  battles  single-handed  against  the  Phoenician 


TEE  OLD  TESTAMENT  71 

Baal,  yet  not  altogether  single-handed,  for  there  are 
seven  thousand  in  Israel  who  have  not  bowed  the 
knee  to  the  foreign  god.  Isaiah  stands  forth  against 
king  and  people,  but  a  little  band  of  disciples  cherishes 
his  words  and  hands  them  down  for  a  treasure  to 
succeeding  generations.  Jeremiah  seems  an  alto- 
gether solitary  figure,  pathetic  in  his  yearning  for 
understanding  and  sympathy.  Yet  even  he  has  a 
faithful  friend  and  scribe  by  whom  the  master's 
example  is  preserved  for  the  encouragement  of  faint- 
hearted believers  through  the  ages.  The  gain  that 
may  justly  be  claimed  for  the  historical  method  is 
the  clearness  with  which  these  great  and  often  tragic 
figures  are  revealed  to  us. 

We  have  already  noted  that  the  prophets  have 
been  misapprehended  because  they  were  made 
simply  expositors  of  the  Law  of  Moses.  Our  dis- 
cussion will  not  become  complete  unless  we  notice 
another  view  of  them  which  has  become  traditional  in 
the  Christian  church,  that  is  the  view  that  their  chief 
office  was  to  predict  the  coming  of  the  Messiah. 
The  literature  on  messianic  prophecy  must  amount 
to  some  thousands  of  volumes,  and  in  its  most  highly 
developed  form  it  discovers  all  the  details  of  Jesus' 
birth,  life,  death,  and  resurrection  adumbrated  or 
distinctly  described  in  the  Old  Testament.  The 
promise  to  the  mother  of  the  race  that  her  seed  shall 
bruise  the  serpent's  head  is  interpreted  as  the  First 
Gospel.  The  whole  series  of  sacrifices  is  supposed  to 
point  forward  to  the  great  and  final  sacrifice  on  the 


72  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

cross.  Jacob's  two  wives  are  types  of  the  Jewish 
and  the  gentile  churches.  Where  the  hteral  meaning 
of  the  text  gives  no  hint  of  referring  to  the  future, 
resort  is  had  to  type  and  allegory  to  discover  the 
desired  prediction.  That  much  of  this  exegesis  loses 
its  force  when  we  use  a  really  historical  method  must 
be  evident.  Are  we  then  to  discard  the  Old  Testa- 
ment as  in  no  sense  preparatory  to  Christianity? 
In  attempting  to  answer  this  question  let  us  notice 
first  of  all  that  from  the  nature  of  the  case  reformers 
look  forward.  He  who  denounces  the  evils  of  con- 
temporary society  must  have  some  hope  of  a  better 
social  order  to  come.  It  is  natural  to  suppose  that 
the  prophets  had  such  a  hope,  especially  when  we 
recall  the  firm  faith  in  a  God  of  righteousness  which 
motived  their  preaching.  In  the  earlier  period  the 
hope  was  kept  in  abeyance,  because  the  people  to 
whom  they  preached  were  indulging  optimistic 
dreams  which  must  not  be  encouraged.  There  were 
plenty  of  prophets  to  flatter  the  people  by  saying 
all  was  well,  when  in  fact  all  was  not  well.  It  was 
when  the  great  calamity  came  and  the  Jews  in  their 
exile  were  tempted  to  give  way  to  despair  that  the 
prophetic  message  changed  to  one  of  hope.  To  this 
extent  there  was  prediction  of  a  good  time  to  come. 
Nor  is  this  all.  The  Old  Testament  development, 
as  we  have  seen,  culminated  in  the  triumph  of  the 
Law.  This  triumph  came  about  by  a  series  of  com- 
promises which  would  not  have  satisfied  the  demands 
of  the  greater  prophets  for  a  religion  of  the  heart. 


TEE  OLD  TESTAMENT  73 

What  actually  had  come  was  a  religion  of  formality, 
and  from  the  nature  of  the  case  this  was  narrow  and 
exclusive.  A  religion  for  the  Jewish  community, 
one  which  ignored  the  mass  of  humanity,  could 
never  be  the  final  religion.  By  its  very  imperfection 
therefore  the  Old  Testament  system  prepared  the 
way  for  something  broader. 

In  another  direction  and  in  a  very  different  manner 
the  way  for  Christianity  was  prepared.  When  the 
voice  of  prophecy  was  silenced  it  was  succeeded  by 
apocalyptic.  Since  the  main  literature  in  which  this 
movement  is  embodied  is  outside  the  bounds  of  our 
Old  Testament  it  need  not  be  discussed  here.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  the  older  view,  according  to  which  the 
Old  Testament  canon  was  closed  by  Ezra  and  suc- 
ceeded by  four  centuries  of  silence,  is  discredited  by  a 
really  historical  view  of  the  Old  Testament  itself. 
Development  did  not  stop ;  it  was  not  even  suspended 
between  Ezra  and  John  the  Baptist.  The  alleged 
four  centuries  of  silence  are  vocal  with  hopes,  fears, 
aspirations,  and  prayers.  But  it  is  impossible  here  to 
trace  the  development  which  led  up  to  the  proclama- 
tion of  the  gospel. 

What  I  have  now  attempted  to  do  is  to  sketch  the 
present  state  of  Old  Testament  study.  The  topic 
assigned  includes  also  the  prospect  of  this  study. 
On  this  it  is  difficult  to  speak  with  confidence.  The 
whole  question  of  the  function  of  the  church  in  modern 
society  is  now  under  discussion.  What  theological 
study  is  to  be  depends  of  course  on  what  the  work  of 


74  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

the  minister  of  religion  is  to  be.  The  school  of 
theology  professes  to  train  men  for  this  work.  The 
future  of  Old  Testament  study  depends  on  the 
value  of  this  study  for  the  minister.  If  the  discussion 
of  today  has  shown  that  the  value  of  the  study  is  not 
now  what  it  has  been  supposed  to  be  in  the  past, 
I  trust  that  it  has  yet  shown  that  it  has  other  values 
equally  important.  Emphasis  is  laid  today  on  social 
reconstruction.  If  the  Old  Testament  shows  any- 
thing it  shows  that  religion  has  been  the  moving 
spring  of  social  progress  in  the  past.  It  reveals 
moreover  the  method  by  which  religion  has  wrought 
for  social  advance.  This  being  so  we  can  hardly 
avoid  the  conclusion  that  Old  Testament  study  will 
hold  its  place  in  the  curriculum. 

Henry  Preserved  Smith 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 


NEW  TESTAMENT  STUDY  TODAY 

The  Meadville  Theological  School  came  into 
being  when  New  Testament  study  was  receiving 
perhaps  the  most  vigorous  shock  of  its  entire  career 
in  the  radical  contributions  of  Ferdinand  Christian 
Baur  and  his  followers  of  the  Tubingen  School.  It  is 
a  commonplace  that  Baur  began  a  new  era  in  our 
science;  the  history  of  this  School  is  coincident  with 
that  era.  The  time-spirit  whose  hand  is  so  obvious 
in  the  devious  course  of  bibhcal  science  can  be  traced 
not  less  clearly  in  the  development  of  the  School's 
curriculum  and  methods.  In  1843,  but  a  few  months 
before  this  institution  of  learning  began  its  career, 
the  redoubtable  and  misdoubted  Theodore  Parker 
had  introduced  '^destructive  German  criticism" 
into  America  by  publishing  in  Boston  a  translation  of 
De  Wette's  Old  Testament  Introduction.  But  it 
was  not  read  in  the  first  years  at  Meadville.  In 
1858  followed  the  New  Testament  part  of  De  Wette's 
Einleitung,  also  pubHshed  in  Boston,  and  made  by 
another  Unitarian  minister,  Rev.  Frederick  Frothing- 
ham.  This  came  to  Meadville  apparently  without 
question.  Fifteen  years  is  a  long  time  in  such  matters. 
Where  minds  are  really  free  and  open  to  the  light, 
movement  of  thought  is  rapid  and  closely  follows 

75 


76  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

the  progress  of  science  in  any  chosen  field.  A  genu- 
inely liberal  institution  of  learning  is  sensitive  to 
advance  in  any  part  of  the  intellectual  world  and 
faithfully  registers  it.  It  is  instructive  to  go  into 
our  library  and  look  over  the  succession  of  books  on 
the  life  of  Jesus,  for  example,  and  note  the  dates 
at  which  they  came  to  our  shelves.  We  have  there 
an  epitome  of  the  development  of  theological  science 
and  an  impressive  testimony  to  the  loyalty  of  the 
School  to  the  ideals  of  freedom  and  progress  on  which 
it  was  founded.  Strauss's  Lehen  Jesu  was  still  a 
nine  days'  wonder  when  the  School  was  born,  and 
came  out  in  George  Eliot's  classic  English  translation 
two  years  afterward.  Thus  the  whole  course  of  the 
attempt  to  construct  a  purely  historical  picture  of 
the  mission  of  Jesus  is  practically  coincident  with 
the  life  of  our  School. 

But  I  am  concerned  on  this  occasion  not  so  much 
with  any  resume  of  the  past  as  with  some  registration 
of  the  present  status  and  method  of  inquiry  into  the 
problems  of  New  Testament  study.  That  there  is  an 
enormous  difference  between  the  New  Testament 
study  of  1844  2-nd  that  of  1920  needs  not  to  be  said  to 
anyone  with  the  slightest  acquaintance  with  the  field. 
And  this  great  difference  is  not  so  much  in  the  subjects 
of  inquiry  and  the  answers  propounded  as  in  the 
method  and  motive  of  the  inquiry.  How  and  why 
do  we  concern  ourselves  with  these  problems  ?  So 
soon  as  we  ask  this  question,  the  situation  is  clear. 
We  are  no  longer  dominated  by  the  spirit  of  Baur 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  77 

and  Strauss,  much  as  we  owe  to  their  labors.  There 
is  a  new  spirit  abroad  in  our  discipHne.  The  phe- 
nomena of  primitive  Christianity  are  no  longer  for  us 
philosophical  phenomena,  occurring  in  conformity  to  a 
scheme  of  logical  development;  they  are  no  longer 
dogmatic  phenomena,  intended  to  serve  as  the  sup- 
port of  doctrines  of  theology  or  even  capable  of  so 
serving;  no  longer  literary  phenomena,  the  writing 
and  editing  and  collecting  of  documents;  no  longer 
even  simple  historical  phenomena,  to  be  listed  as 
mere  data  in  the  chronicle  of  the  first  century.  As 
all  these,  singly  or  in  combination,  has  the  primitive 
tradition  been  treated,  and  so  treated  in  vain.  Not 
thus  has  it  yielded  up  its  real  secret. 

Now  we  are  approaching  the  origins  of  Chris- 
tianity as  a  group  of  phenomena  in  the  human 
experience  of  rehgion,  and  we  begin  to  know  their 
significance.  Even  the  writings  are  not  ultimately 
documentary  phenomena:  they  are  religious  phe- 
nomena. Men  wrote  as  they  were  moved  by  a  holy 
Spirit,  not  by  a  furor  scribendi.  It  is  a  very  simple 
thing  thus  to  describe  the  rationale  of  our  inquiry, 
but  it  is  a  very  profound  and  far-reaching  observation 
that  we  have  thus  made.  And  the  realization  of  this 
truth  means  the  greatest  transformation  in  attitude 
toward  the  materials  of  the  Christian  tradition  that 
the  Christian  mind  has  ever  undergone.  The  investi- 
gators of  the  literary  process  have  too  often  failed  to 
ask  why  the  literary  process  at  all,  or  to  recognize 
that  the  driving-power  lay  outside  the  bookroom. 


78  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

We  are  beginning  to  see  more  clearly.  To  use  a 
single  example,  the  question  as  to  the  authorship  of 
so-called  '^  Ephesians  "  by  Paul  is  not  finally  a  question 
of  hapax  legomena  and  style  and  agreements  of  text 
with  Colossians  and  comparison  of  ecclesiastical 
terms.  The  writer  of  Ephesians  was  a  man,  with  a 
profound  experience  of  religion  awakened  by  the 
impact  of  the  Christian  gospel.  The  writer  of  Romans 
and  Galatians  and  Corinthians  was  a  man,  in  vital 
and  direct  reaction  on  a  religious  experience.  Our 
question  is  ultimately:  Are  these  two  experiences  one, 
the  reactions  of  the  same  personality  ?  For  all  these 
documents  get  written  only  as  the  embodiment  of  a 
religious  experience  and  have  as  such  their  sole 
significance,  have  here  the  one  norm  for  their  inter- 
pretation. Of  course  they  came  to  be  by  a  literary 
process,  but  that  process  was  used  by  something 
more  ultimate  and  sovereign  than  itself.  That 
philosophical  and  theological  considerations  played 
their  part  who  would  dispute?  That  all  alleged 
facts  must  meet  the  test  of  historic  evidence,  with  no 
more  exemption  or  concession  in  the  field  of  religious 
history  than  in  that  of  science,  is  of  course  axiomatic. 
But  we  are  sure  that  in  no  one  of  these  aspects  lies 
the  ultimate  importance  and  significance  of  the 
materials  of  New  Testament  study. 

A  survey  of  the  various  departments  of  research 
within  our  field,  and  of  the  various  problems  that 
call  for  solution  in  each,  would  give  us  impressive 
confirmation  of  this  position.     The  New  Testament 


TEE  NEW  TESTAMENT  79 

meets  us  today  as  a  volume,  a  collection.  Who 
collected  it,  and  when?  Above  all,  why?  What 
inner  unity  is  there  among  these  seven-and-twenty 
documents  that  precisely  they,  and  no  others,  found 
place  in  this  canonical  selection  ?  And  when  we  dis- 
sect the  volume  into  its  component  elements  and 
face  the  problems  of  New  Testament  introduction, 
the  situation  is  the  same.  These  documents  are 
obviously  not  hooks,  prepared  for  a  publisher,  from 
the  sales  of  which  royalties  might  be  drawn.  Quite 
other  motives  prompted  those  who  wrote.  One- 
third  of  the  documents  are  anonymous;  who  were 
these  men,  unlettered  some,  professional  writers  none, 
whom  an  overmastering  religious  impulse  drove  to 
the  pen?  We  ask  their  names,  their  dates,  their 
circumstances,  their  motives,  for  no  reason  save  that 
we  may  get  nearer  to  the  experience  which  created 
their  little  pamphlets  and  made  them  immortal. 
Questions  of  authorship  may  be  quite  idle;  they  are 
certainly  so  if  they  spring  from  no  interest  beyond 
the  purely  literary  or  historical  curiosity.  From  any 
such  point  of  view,  it  matters  not  a  whit  who  wrote 
the  Fourth  Gospel;  let  us  say  an  anonymous  Asian 
Christian  of  the  early  second  century,  and  be  done 
with  it.  Only  from  the  standpoint  of  an  under- 
standing of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  is  it  of  supreme  impor- 
tance to  learn  whether  this  writing  presents  a  personal 
disciple's  trustworthy  account  of  the  Master's  actual 
words  and  deeds.  So  whether  the  ''Epistle  of  James" 
is  an  early  writing,  from  the  first  or  second  decade 


8o  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

after  Jesus'  death,  or  is  one  of  the  latest  works  in 
the  canon,  from  a  time  when  the  movement  of  Jesus 
is  perhaps  a  century  in  being,  is  not  a  chronological 
problem  at  all,  for  those  of  us  who  study  it.  Save 
for  our  interest  in  this  writing,  one  date  is  as  good  as 
the  other,  since  absolute  dating  is  impossible.  But 
our  interest;  yes,  that  makes  the  question  important 
whether  this  somewhat  prosaic,  practical  homily, 
with  its  excellent  if  somewhat  domestic  morality, 
with  its  bare  mention  of  Jesus  in  two  formal  phrases 
only,  represents  the  first  fresh  impact  of  the  gospel 
upon  the  Master's  own  generation,  indeed,  upon  his 
own  flesh  and  blood,  who  drank  from  the  same 
mother's  breast  with  him,  or  sets  down  the  ethical 
counsel  of  a  preacher  in  the  more  sober  days  of  the 
next  century.  Whether  the  Apocalypse  of  John  is  a 
literary  unity  becomes  for  us  the  question  whether  it  is 
a  spiritual  unity,  whether  it  sprang  in  its  entirety 
out  of  the  mind  of  Jesus'  own  beloved  disciple,  who  lay 
upon  his  breast  and  heard  his  words  and  breathed  in 
his  spirit.  Or  have  we  the  work  of  a  fiery  and  loyal 
devotee,  who  out  of  Jewish  apocalyptic  shapes  a 
vision  of  the  return  in  glory  of  that  messianic  Lord 
whom  he  can  picture  only  as  the  seven-horned  Ram 
from  whose  wrath  the  peoples  flee  in  terror,  or  as  the 
mighty  warrior  on  the  white  steed  of  victory,  fur- 
nished with  the  sharp  two-edged  sword?  Have  we 
here  the  influence  of  the  historic  Jesus  on  a  soul  that 
knew  and  loved  and  understood  him,  or  the  influence 
of  one  aspect  of  his  eschatology   on   a  passionate 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  8i 

hater  of  oppression  and  lover  of  the  people  of  God,  a 
poet  and  a  seer  to  whom  not  only  the  heavens  and 
the  abyss  were  open,  but  the  treasures  of  a  hundred 
prophetic  books  as  well?  Such  questions  are  the 
real  questions  of  New  Testament  introduction.  We 
do  not  always,  indeed,  raise  them  in  just  this  form, 
but  if  this  were  not  their  real  significance  for  us,  we 
should  not  raise  them  at  all.  As  having  only  a 
literary  or  historic  interest  they  would  not  compel 
our  attention  beside  a  thousand  questions  of  this 
kind  of  vastly  greater  importance.  But  because 
behind  all  our  study  lies  the  insistent  urge  of  the 
rehgious  interest,  every  detail  that  brings  the  writer 
and  the  writing  nearer  to  our  comprehension  is  of 
vital  concern.  We  look  back  at  the  men — a  dozen 
or  more  of  them — who  penned  the  writings  in  the 
New  Testament,  and  we  see  them,  not  as  writers  at 
all,  not  as  theologians,  still  less  as  philosophers,  not 
as  historians  or  chroniclers  or  biographers;  we  see 
them  as  simple  men  who  have  been  laid  hold  of  by  an 
overmastering  impulse  of  rehgion.  To  its  service 
they  give  themselves;  these  bits  of  writing,  letters 
for  the  most  part,  are  by-products  of  their  Christian 
life.  They  would  surely  now  be  surprised  to  learn 
that  they  survive  in  human  memory  as  writers; 
their  writing  must  have  been  so  secondary  in  their 
consciousness  that  they  might  have  forgotten  it 
altogether. 

The  bibhcal  criticism  of  the  past  was  at  fault  here. 
It    almost    completely    depersonalized    the    writers, 


82  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

with  its  talk  of  ^'the  apostle, '^  "the  evangelist," 
and  in  practice  made  the  men  coterminous  with  the 
written  fragments  preserved  in  our  canon.  Paul, 
for  example,  was  equated  with  the  handful  of  thirteen 
or  fourteen  ''epistles"  there  ascribed  to  him  and 
dominated  Christian  imagination  as  a  letter-writer, 
a  man  of  the  pen,  always  at  the  desk.  So  lamentably 
was  this  most  vital  man  of  affairs  misconceived! 
Baur  and  the  Tubinger  made  him  into  an  idea,  the 
idea  that  is  most  prominent  in  the  polemic  of  the 
letter  to  the  Galatians.  Of  Paul  beyond  the  driving 
concern  with  that  idea  there  was  practically  none; 
of  letters,  indeed,  there  were  acknowledged  only 
those  four  which  served  in  some  degree  as  vehicle  for 
that  idea.  For  many  exegetes,  Paul  has  been  the 
theologian,  and  the  only  question  of  importance  about 
him  that  as  to  the  Lehrgehalt  of  this  or  that  epistle. 
The  very  word  ''epistle"  has  connoted  docimients 
whose  prime  purpose  was  to  serve  as  the  medium  of 
dogmatic  instruction.  We  have  at  last  learned  that 
Paul  was  not  primarily  a  letter-writer.  That  a 
dozen  or  so  letters  survive  bearing  his  name  is  nothing 
extraordinary;  you  and  I  have  doubtless  written 
more  within  the  past  week.  Even  as  the  writer  of 
these  letters  he  is  not  author,  composer,  still  less  is  he 
theologian  or  ecclesiastic.  He  is  the  most  human  of 
men,  carrying  on  a  tremendous  enterprise  to  which  a 
letter  now  and  then  is  incidental.  The  discovery  of 
many  other  letters  in  the  vernacular  Koine  of  the  time 
has  dispelled  the  solemn  fiction  of  "New  Testament 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  83 

Greek,"  but  it  has  shown  also  that  the  biblical 
periods  of  the  Pauline  letters  are  the  customary 
epistolary  courtesies  of  his  age.  We  have  recovered 
Paul  the  man;  in  this  matter  we  are  much  indebted 
to  Professor  Deissmann  of  Berlin  and  Professor 
Weinel  of  Jena,  as  well  as  to  English  scholars  Hke 
Percy  Gardner,  who  has  given  us  an  admirable  study 
of  the  Religious  Experience  of  St.  Paul, 

When  the  letters  are  relegated  to  their  proper 
place  and  seen  in  true  perspective,  we  can  for  the 
first  time  judge  inteUigently  as  to  their  authenticity 
or  pseudonymity.  As  vehicles  of  "Paulinism," 
they  can  offer  no  reHable  testimony  on  this  point. 
If  the  four-epistle  Pauline  canon  of  Baur  has  been 
enlarged  to  contain  at  least  double  the  number,  it  is 
not  on  purely  hterary  grounds  nor  on  dogmatic 
grounds;  it  is  because  the  same  human  being,  engaged 
in  the  same  gigantic  task,  with  the  same  reHgious 
experience  and  the  same  reaction  on  his  human 
problems,  meets  us  in  all.  In  our  appHcation  of  the 
human,  reHgious,  psychological  test  we  do  not,  of 
course,  ignore  the  Hterary  tests.  It  goes  without 
saying  that  vocabulary  and  style  and  indications  of 
literary  relationship  with  other  documents  are  as 
important  in  our  study  today  as  at  any  previous 
time;  it  is  only  that  such  criteria  are  no  longer  the 
only  ones,  or  the  ones  which  necessarily  dictate  the 
final  decision.  The  purely  literary  tests  need  to  be 
used  with  great  caution  in  dealing  with  occasional 
letters,  which  are  not  systematic  treatises  or  books, 
and  with  not  more  than  a  dozen  such  letters  available 


84  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

for  comparison.  Who  would  venture  to  fix  the  style 
and  vocabulary  of  any  modern  writer,  for  example, 
from  a  dozen  of  his  letters  ?  I  Corinthians  has  more 
than  two  hundred  Jiapax  legomena,  Romans  more  than 
one  hundred.  Zahn  once  drew  up  a  list  of  eighty- 
six  ''suspicious"  words  and  phrases  in  Galatians.  Yet 
such  data,  however  multiplied,  cast  no  shadow  of 
doubt  on  the  Paulinity  of  these  letters.  In  the  case 
of  letters  dubious  from  the  personal  side  they  would 
have  their  weight. 

The  Synoptic  Problem  has  for  us  of  today  been 
transformed  into  the  synoptists'  problem;  it  is  not 
a  problem  of  documents,  but  of  men.  What  we 
really  want  to  know  is  not  how  Mark's  text  is  related 
to  the  hypothetical  Q-text,  but  how  the  human 
experience  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  that  found  expres- 
sion in  the  gospel- writing  traditionally  called  "accord- 
ing to  Matthew"  is  related  to  that  other  experience 
registered  in  the  writing  to  which  Luke's  name  is 
attached.  These  two  writings  are  different,  not 
primarily  because  the  documents  on  the  editorial 
desk  were  different,  but  because  the  men  at  the  pen 
were  different.  The  traditional  usage  of  speaking 
of  one  of  the  first  four  writings  in  our  New  Testament 
as  a  gospel  (language  which  would  have  shocked 
immeasurably  a  Christian  of  the  first  generation) 
has  blinded  us  to  the  fact  that  each  means  to  be 
the  gospel,  the  very  Christianity,  the  heart's  rehgion, 
of  some  earnest  believer.  That  he  set  this  gospel 
of  his  forth  for  the  spiritual  quickening  of  others  is 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  85 

not  a  literary  fact,  but  an  item  of  his  religious  life. 
Of  course  he  used  such  written  sources  as  were  at  his 
disposal,  but  the  important  thing  is  never  his  appro- 
priation of  sources,  but  his  own  contribution,  the 
stamp  of  his  own  religious  experience  which  lies  across 
it  all.  That  it  was  which  impelled  him  to  write; 
that  it  is  which  kept  his  writing  alive  and  makes  it 
worth  our  study  today.  The  instructive  thing  is  to 
inquire  what  was  going  on  in  the  soul  of  this  devout 
and  nameless  man  whom  Hterary  tradition  incor- 
rectly calls  Matthew.  His  literary  procedure  is 
fairly  obvious,  but  no  one  of  his  sources  nor  their 
mere  combination  expresses  his  gospel.  That  becomes 
visible  in  what  he  does  with  his  sources,  how  he 
interprets  them,  how  he  adds  to  them  or  quietly 
passes  over  certain  of  their  passages.  The  two- 
document  hypothesis  is  now  practically  certain,  but 
we  lack  as  yet  a  completely  satisfying  exegesis  of 
these  three  gospel-writings  which  will  reveal  the 
true  inwardness  of  their  variations.  Such  an  exegesis 
we  are  just  ready  to  prepare. 

The  Acts  of  the  Apostles  is  just  now  a  battle- 
ground of  literary  criticism.  Its  sources  are  being 
eagerly  sought,  and  perhaps  the  most  interesting  of 
the  purely  literary  problems  He  just  now  in  this  field. 
Professor  Torrey  finds  Aramaic  sources  for  a  large 
part  of  the  work,  a  thesis  which  has  divided  New 
Testament  students.  Here  again  the  purely  literary 
argmnent  seems  inadequate.  Grant  that  the  linguis- 
tic phenomena  of  the  first  half  of  the  work  indicate 


86  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

an  underlying  Aramaic  text  (which  is  far  from  certain) , 
the  theory  must  be  tested  as  a  whole  with  its  corol- 
laries and  consequences.  Here  its  enormous  diffi- 
culties become  apparent.  The  reactions  on  the  work 
and  word  of  Jesus  which  it  attributes  to  believers  of 
the  middle  of  the  first  century,  the  impulse  to  write 
compends  of  the  gospel  which  it  dates  long  before  the 
death  of  Paul,  throw  the  whole  picture  into  psycho- 
logical confusion.  If  anything  is  clear  it  is  that  the 
gospel  was  from  the  first  an  oral  magnitude  on  its 
teaching  side.  Its  original  course  is  vividly  pictured 
in  that  primitive  word:  ^'What  I  tell  you  in  the 
darkness  speak  ye  in  the  light,  and  what  ye  hear  in 
the  ear,  proclaim  upon  the  house  tops."  Of  course 
the  gospel  was  not  -^xiva^xW.y  teaching  at  all;  it  was 
living,  and  was  propagated  by  the  contagion  of 
personal  example.  Spirit  kindled  spirit.  Christi- 
anity spread  from  mouth  to  ear,  but  it  also  spread 
from  life  to  life,  and  in  its  propaganda  ''gospel"  did 
not  primarily  suggest  a  new  teaching  to  be  learned, 
still  less  did  it  mean  a  new  book  to  be  read;  it  meant 
a  wave  of  blessed  reHgious  experience  to  be  appro- 
priated. Propagated  as  a  life  through  the  medium 
of  an  oral  teaching  which  was  but  the  commentary 
on  that  life,  it  came  ultimately  to  find  expression  in 
a  medium  natively  foreign  to  it,  in  the  written  word. 
Yet  that  written  word  was  but  the  sketch  of  what 
was  still  conceived  as  essentially  oral;  it  was  but 
the  preacher's  notes,  the  compend  of  sermon-stuff. 
And  it  came  only  when  it  was  absolutely  necessary 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  87 

that  it  should  come;  the  living  gospel  resisted  fixation 
in  the  written  text  as  long  as  possible.  As  the 
first  generation  of  missionaries  passed  away,  those 
who  had  seen  and  heard  Jesus  himself,  or  caught  the 
message  from  his  personal  disciples,  the  oral  tradition 
was  in  danger.  It  was  being  preached  at  second, 
third,  fourth  hand,  in  new  lands  and  new  tongues, 
far  from  its  original  enunciation.  Propagated  in 
preaching  only,  where  the  form  of  words  was  governed 
by  the  audience  and  the  occasion,  as  Papias  says  in 
his  comment  on  Mark,  the  tradition  began  to  lose 
fixed  outline  and  fidelity  to  its  initial  content.  The 
gospel  could  not  go  on  forever  as  an  oral  proclamation. 
To  preserve  it,  ere  its  essential  form  was  lost,  it 
must  be  written.  The  newer  missionaries  needed 
it  as  a  manual  to  guide  their  own  preaching.  The 
rapidly  multiplying  churches  needed  it  to  nourish 
their  faith  in  the  absence  of  an  apostolic  teacher. 
For  obvious  reasons  of  this  sort  the  gospel  got  written 
down  by  men  of  the  second  generation  of  believers, 
as  the  writer  we  call  Luke  points  out  in  his  candid 
preface,  as  the  gospel  tradition  was  ''handed  down 
to  us  by  them  who  from  the  beginning  were  eye- 
witnesses and  ministers  of  the  word."  Not  in  the 
earliest  days,  when  the  tremendous  impression  of 
Jesus'  personahty  and  proclamation  is  still  so  vital, 
when  no  one  thinks  of  the  gospel  as  anything  but 
personal  and  oral,  which  must  be  spoken  in  the  ear 
and  upon  the  housetops  to  all  men,  whether  they 
will  hear  or  whether  they  will  forbear.     Not  in  those 


88  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

early  days  when  Christians  lived  in  daily,  hourly 
expectation  of  their  Master's  return  as  Messiah  to 
establish  the  Kingdom  of  God.  His  career  had  been 
but  just  begun;  the  days  of  his  flesh  were  but  the 
briefest  opening  chapter  of  the  story  of  Jesus  the 
Master.  Spread  his  message;  prepare  men  for  his 
return;  but  write  books  about  him?  The  thought 
does  not  arise.  Busy  missionaries  like  Paul,  when 
they  wrote,  wrote  practical  letters  in  the  furtherance 
of  their  work,  which  excite  surprise  today  for  their 
precise  omission  of  ''the  gospel."  The  time  of 
gospel-writing  is  approximately  the  time  succeeding 
Paul's  death.  That  primitive  gospel  Q  doubtless 
belongs  to  the  later  sixties;  Mark  follows  at  the 
beginning  of  the  seventies,  Matthew  and  Luke 
probably  in  the  last  decade  of  the  century.  As  a  new 
generation  comes  on  the  scene,  as  the  advent  expecta- 
tion cools  and  fades,  as  the  message  grows  to  have 
more  values  for  this  world  and  Hfe  continuing  here, 
as  those  elements  in  it  not  directly  bound  up  with  the 
hope  of  Messiah's  coming  in  heavenly  power  come 
more  and  more  to  their  own,  then  the  gospel  is  writ- 
ten by  one  ardent  Christian  teacher  after  another. 
And  the  time  when  it  is  written  down  has  profound 
importance  for  its  form  as  written.  As  we  read, 
we  can  see  clearly  how  the  gospel  mirrored  itself  in 
the  soul  of  each  writer  in  turn,  see  also  how  it  was 
making  its  way  in  the  environment  of  his  own  Chris- 
tian life.  The  gospels  are  extraordinarily  naive  and 
candid    documents;     expositors   have    gone    greatly 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  89 

astray  in  thinking  them  clever  and  subtle,  their 
writers  with  skilful  art  so  manipulating  language 
as  to  make  capital  for  favorite  views.  Nothing 
could  be  less  accurate.  What  the  gospel  was  to  them 
they  show,  and  all  their  motives  lie  on  the  surface. 
To  turn  to  that  amazing  Apocalypse  of  John,  in 
these  latter  days  so  much  perturbing  the  vulgar 
Christian  brain.  It  had  its  era  of  literary  criticism, 
which,  indeed,  is  not  yet  over,  for  it  offers  a  great 
number  of  extraordinarily  tantalizing  literary  prob- 
lems. Its  original  language,  its  unity,  its  dependence 
on  Jewish  predecessors,  its  date  and  authorship — on 
all  these  and  many  similar  problems  there  is  more 
light  yet  to  be  sought  and  found.  That  it  is  a 
literary  product  is  clear;  it  is  no  spontaneous  tran- 
script of  a  single  ecstatic  experience.  Quotation 
marks  should  thickly  sprinkle  its  pages;  it  smells 
of  the  lamp.  And  yet  it  is  profoundly  original; 
an  elemental  spirit  has  laid  hold  of  its  somewhat 
heterogeneous  sources  and  welded  them  into  a 
compact  whole,  and  in  the  process  they  have  under- 
gone a  sea  change  into  something  new  and  passing 
strange.  But  our  generation  has  seen  that  the 
riddle  of  the  Apocalypse  is  not  to  be  solved  by  literary 
analysis  alone;  back  of  their  literary  history  the 
images  and  concepts  have  a  history  in  the  religious 
thinking  of  mankind,  in  diverse  ages,  among  diverse 
peoples.  The  Apocalypse  is  the  New  Testament 
document  where  the  religionsgeschichtliche  Methode 
has  the  freest  field  and  has  won  the  most  undoubted 


90  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

victories.  Here  in  very  truth  we  cannot  go  far 
without  falhng  back  on  the  study  of  the  history  of 
rehgious  ideas  and  their  visualization  in  the  imagina- 
tion of  primitive  man.  Gunkel  and  Bousset,  Charles 
and  Case,  have  taught  us  here,  and  we  have  still 
much  to  learn.  Not  that  John  himself  borrows 
directly  from  Babylon  and  Persia  and  the  myths  of 
Greece,  but  that  he  takes  up  current  concepts  and 
pictures  which  have  behind  them  a  long  history  of 
which  he  is  unconscious.  For  him  they  are  a  part 
of  the  Jewish  apocalyptic  coin  of  the  time.  But  no 
Jew  before  or  after  our  John  made  such  magnificent 
use  of  the  material.  It  is  all  very  well  to  say  that  this 
is  an  apocalypse  like  any  other;  it  is  assuredly  an 
apocalypse  unlike  any  other.  Use  all  the  methods 
of  eschatological  interpretation,  of  literary  analysis; 
search  mythology  and  folklore  for  the  origin  of 
dragon  and  serpent  and  white  horse  and  ram,  but 
the  final  clue  is  given  by  the  fact  that  the  ram  is 
Christianized  and  made,  with  whatever  of  grotesque- 
ness,  into  the  Messiah  who  had  been  slain.  Though 
here  we  have  eschatology  in  its  most  florid  develop- 
ment, it  is  dominated  and  controlled  by  a  wonderful 
religious  experience.  It  is  not  always  that  eschatol- 
ogy and  religion  go  hand  in  hand;  here,  as  nowhere 
else,  they  are  inseparable. 

The  name  and  tradition  of  John  of  the  Revelation 
have  been  widely  borrowed  for  the  writer  of  a  com- 
pletely antipodal  work,  the  Fourth  Gospel.  No  two 
writings    could    more    definitely    face    in    opposite 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  91 

directions,  and  yet  there  is  a  baffling,  elusive  Johan- 
nine  suggestion  clinging  like  an  odor  about  the 
Gospel.  Time  was  when  to  name  the  anonymous 
author,  and  to  name  him  John  of  Zebedee,  was  the 
most  important  thing  to  do  with  respect  to  this  work. 
Now  it  is  less  important  to  name  him  than  to  fathom 
what  manner  of  man  he  was  and  to  understand  his 
reaction  upon  the  gospel  of  Jesus.  After  all,  if  he 
were  the  apostle  John,  then  the  apostle  John  wrote 
that  sort  of  work  and  shared  this  well-defined  con- 
ception. The  identification  would  throw  light  on  him 
and  his  processes  of  thought,  but  none  at  all  on  the 
gospel,  which  stands  there  stronger  than  all  theories 
and  traditions.  It  is  what  it  is,  and  any  theory 
must  fit  it,  not  dominate  it.  Only  gradually  has  the 
church  yielded  her  conviction  that  here  a  beloved 
disciple  of  the  Master  spoke  out  the  very  heart  of 
Christ.  That  tradition  is  today,  however,  yielding 
on  every  side.  It  yields  with  frequent  reservations, 
to  be  sure,  but  it  yields.  It  is  difficult  to  suppose  that 
the  next  generation  will  believe  either  in  the  Johan- 
nine  authorship  or  the  historical  character  of  the 
work.  But  that  is  far  from  saying  that  the  next 
generation  will  fail  in  any  degree  to  appreciate  the 
full  worth  of  this  anonymous  masterpiece.  The 
work  from  its  earliest  appearance  struck  readers  of 
the  synoptics  as  in  sharp  contrast  to  them,  and  has 
therefore  been  a  problem.  It  was  natural  to  inter- 
pret it  negatively,  in  terms  of  what  it  was  not,  what 
it  lacked,  of  its  divergence  from  its  predecessors. 


92  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

So  in  our  day  we  have  elaborate  tables  of  these 
discrepancies  and  find  ourselves  placed  squarely 
before  the  alternative:  either  the  synoptic  presenta- 
tion of  Jesus  or  the  Johannine.  They  are  mutually 
exclusive.  Sentiment  and  doctrinal  considerations 
apart,  this  judgment  will  stand,  and  will  more  and 
more  compel  the  conviction  of  every  disinterested 
student.  But  it  is  an  enormous  misfortune  that  the 
synoptics  were  ever  made  the  standard  for  estimating 
this  gospel,  that  it  has  from  the  first  been  seen  in  a 
negative  light,  as  different  from  something  else. 
For  it  is  an  intensely  positive  work  and  demands  to  be 
judged  on  its  own  merits,  for  its  own  peculiar  and 
highly  valuable  presentation.  That  it  is  discrepant 
from  its  predecessors  is  relevant  only  if  it  aims  to  be 
what  they  are.  But  this  aim  it  not  only  nowhere 
professes  but  at  every  point  disavows.  It  does 
not  mean  to  give  the  facts  over  again,  or  to  sub- 
stitute a  new  set  of  gospel  facts  for  those  already 
famihar;  it  means  to  give  the  significance  of  the 
facts  for  the  faith  of  the  church  of  the  early  second 
century.  The  Jesus  who  here  speaks  is  not  the 
historic  Jesus  of  Galilee  in  the  year  30;  he  is  the 
Jesus  of  the  church's  faith  nearly  a  century  later. 
He  is  represented  as  declaring  what  he  was  actually 
saying  through  his  church  in  those  years.  He  is 
made  the  protagonist  and  spokesman  of  the  church 
in  its  debate  with  the  world,  in  its  debate  especially 
with  the  Jews.  He  is,  by  a  bold  but  singularly 
felicitous  device,  let  to  say  of  himself  what  the  church 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  93 

says  of  him.  The  strange  egotism  of  the  gospel,  a  rock 
of  offense  to  some,  is  here  explained.  The  seven 
great  ''I  Ams"  are  just  the  church's  repeated  ''He 
is."  To  understand  the  Fourth  Gospel  we  have 
learned  to  turn  all  the  utterances  of  Jesus  into  the 
third  person.  But  how  effective  is  the  first!  The 
author  might  say  of  him:  He  is  to  our  souls  the  Bread 
of  Life,  he  is  the  Good  Shepherd,  he  was  before 
Abraham  in  the  bosom  of  God  his  Father.  Instead, 
Jesus  boldly  declares:  ''I  am  the  living  bread  that 
came  down  out  of  heaven;  he  that  eateth  my  flesh 
and  drinketh  my  blood  hath  eternal  life."  Could 
the  evangeHst  have  discoursed  so  effectively  about 
the  Eucharist  ?  He  means  to  lift  the  veil  of  historic 
circumstance  and  let  the  heavenly  visitant  shine 
through  in  his  proper  glory.  Every  reader  is  put  in 
the  place  of  the  three  disciples  in  the  synoptic  incident 
of  the  Transfiguration,  an  incident  which  fails  in  this 
gospel  save  as  it  has  its  equivalent  in  the  gospel  as  a 
whole.  Or  we  are  like  the  disciples  of  Emmaus: 
our  eyes  have  been  holden.  Now,  pf  a  sudden,  they 
are  opened,  and  he  is  known  of  us  in  the  earthly 
setting  for  a  dweller  in  another  sphere.  We  see  what 
he  really  was,  what  his  words  really  meant,  what  his 
deeds  signified,  what  was  implicit  in  him,  what  was 
involved  in  his  very  being  here,  the  divine  reality 
back  of  the  human  phenomenon.  The  eternal  val- 
ues assert  themselves.  The  Fourth  Gospel  is  the 
faith  of  the  church  put  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus  and 
into  symboHc  deed  at  his  hand.    It  is  not  a  true 


94  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

record  of  the  Galilean  Jesus  whom  Pilate  crucified; 
it  is  a  marvelously  true  picture  of  the  Asian  Jesus 
of  the  early  second  century,  the  Lamb  that  removed 
the  sin  of  the  cosmos,  who  had  long  ago  died  and  risen 
and  ascended  up  where  he  was  before,  the  eternal 
Logos,  who  by  the  twin  sacraments  of  the  incarnation 
and  the  excarnation  had  redeemed  the  world. 

The  actual  historic  Hfe  of  Jesus  we  study  today 
as  a  phenomenon  in  the  history  of  religion.  All 
other  aspects  of  it  are  subordinate  to  this,  indeed, 
are  unintelligible  save  in  the  light  of  this.  The  great 
fact  itself  and  the  various  legendary  accretions  that 
gathered  round  the  fact  serve  this  interest  and  this 
alone.  Something  happened  there  in  Palestine  1900 
years  ago  that  cleft  human  history  sheer  in  two. 
It  was  that  a  young  man  had  an  extraordinary 
experience  of  religion;  nothing  save  this.  His  words 
and  his  behavior  were  but  the  outward  flowering  of 
his  religion.  His  life  was  obscure  enough  and  without 
notable  incident;  it  left  its  unparalleled  impression 
not  at  all  because  of  what  he  did,  but  because  of 
what  he  was.  Of  incident  in  Jesus'  career  there  is 
practically  nothing  in  the  records  save  those  benevo- 
lences to  which  a  later  age  attached  the  name  and 
dogmatic  conception  of  miracles.  But  even  such  of 
these  as  seem  clearly  historic  incident  and  not  legend- 
ary embeUishment  had  no  such  uniqueness  and  in- 
terpretation as  later  dogmatic  necessity  put  upon 
them.  It  was  not,  in  any  large  sense,  a  notable 
career;   it  was,  in  every  sense,  a  notable  experience 


TEE  NEW  TESTAMENT  95 

of  religion.  It  was  as  a  religious  man  that  Jesus 
worked  what  we  call  miracles.  Not  as  Messiah,  not 
as  Son  of  Man  or  Son  of  God,  not  by  virtue  of  any 
unique  status,  did  he  go  about  doing  good,  heaUng 
alike  the  bodies  and  souls  of  the  people.  Healing 
and  helping  the  poor  was  no  part  of  Messiah's  task; 
Jesus'  compassionate  heart,  his  deep  sense  of  brother- 
hood, drove  him  to  meet  the  piteous  need,  and  his 
profound  faith  in  the  power  and  the  love  of  God 
made  him  able  to  serve  as  the  efficient  mediator  of 
that  power  and  love  to  suffering  men  and  women. 
There  can  be  no  historic  question  that  Jesus  was 
endowed  with  notable  powers,  especially  powers  of 
calming  disordered  minds  and  restoring  diseased 
organisms  to  health.  It  is  precisely  modern  science, 
with  its  researches  into  pathological  psychology  and 
its  revival  of  the  ancient  practice  of  psycho-therapy, 
which  has  made  us  believe  that  the  stories  of  healing 
by  Jesus  and  the  apostles  rest  on  a  soHd  foundation 
of  fact.  Colored,  enlarged  here  and  there  in  the 
process  of  oral  tradition,  the  list  of  cases  has  inevitably 
been,  yet  in  the  main  the  things  happened.  The 
sick  were  cured,  the  demoniacs  were  relieved  of  their 
possession,  not  always  permanently  in  either  case, 
perhaps,  but  often  or  commonly  so.  If  Jesus  were 
not  a  successful  spiritual  healer  of  this  type,  the 
Gospels  could  hardly  make  any  claim  to  historicity, 
and  many  a  modern  therapeutist  would  leave  him 
far  behind.  As  to  the  four  nature-miracles  recorded, 
they  are  either  legend  or  the  outgrowth  of  simpler 


96  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

happenings.  As  legend,  we  can  see  and  appreciate 
their  homiletic  point;  in  a  story  like  that  of  the  fig  tree 
blasted  by  Jesus'  curse  we  can  see  a  parable  turned  by 
repeated  and  vigorous  homiletic  use  into  a  narrative 
of  outward  fact.  We  are  far  today  from  that  rational- 
izing treatment  of  the  miracles  which,  as  Matthew 
Arnold  well  said,  got  rid  of  all  the  poetry  without 
removing  the  difficulty.  We  do  wish  to  give  them 
rational  treatment,  but  reason  tells  us  that  when 
Jesus  *'went  about  doing  good  and  healing  all  that 
were  oppressed  of  the  devil"  it  was  truly  because 
^'God  was  with  him";  it  was  a  phenomenon  of 
religion.  And  when  these  narratives  became  a  part 
of  the  synoptists'  record,  it  was  for  their  religious 
significance;  they  were  gospel  for  these  writers,  texts 
for  preaching,  not  ''miracles, "  not  "proofs"  of 
anything.  The  "evidential"  use  of  these  narratives, 
foreign  to  their  origin  and  fatal  to  their  religious 
effectiveness,  is  fortunately  passing  away.  As  A.  B. 
Bruce  said  as  far  back  as  1892,  "Men  do  not  now 
believe  in  Christ  because  of  His  miracles:  they  rather 
beheve  in  the  miracles  because  they  have  first  believed 
in  Christ."  Jesus  himself,  long  ago,  when  he  vehe- 
mently repudiated  the  kind  of  sign  the  Fourth 
EvangeHst  presents  with  such  zeal,  evaluated  cor- 
rectly the  worth  of  conviction  based  on  evidential 
miracle.  "  It  is  an  evil  and  adulterous  generation  that 
seeks  after  a  sign,  and  no  sign  shall  be  given  unto  it. " 
WilHam  Temple  asks  {Mens  Creatrix,  pp.  311-13), 
"What  could  be  further  from  discipleship  than  one 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  97 

who  was  convinced  that  Christ  is  the  revelation  of 
God,  while  wishing  all  the  time  that  he  were  not?" 
The  powers  of  Jesus  evidence  a  great,  ardent,  vital, 
kindling,  religious  personality,  who  moved  and 
spoke  with  an  authority  that  even  his  enemies  had  to 
acknowledge,  to  which  minds  normal  and  abnormal 
were  submissive.  This  is  the  great  outstanding 
phenomenon,  wliich  demands  our  recognition  and 
our  reverent  study.  But  the  issue  is  only  beclouded 
by  trying  to  save  any  meaning  for  the  term  "miracle" 
which  can  be  vaKd  for  the  twentieth-century  mind. 
The  eschatology  of  Jesus  is  another  element  in  his 
reUgion  which  only  in  our  own  recent  day  has  come 
to  be  correctly  esteemed.  From  the  latter  part  of  the 
first  century,  when  its  literal  fulfilment  began  to 
appear  dubious,  it  has  been  a  difficulty,  something  to 
be  explained  away,  as  meaning  something  else. 
Dogmatic  theology  had  little  trouble  in  giving  it  an 
ecclesiastical  interpretation,  and  the  latter-day  "lib- 
eral" theologians,  with  their  social  and  ethical 
predilections,  found  the  Kangdom  of  God  on  earth 
the  key  to  his  ministry  precisely  in  the  same  sense  as 
it  was  to  their  own.  The  Jesus  of  their  presentation, 
who  belonged  to  the  nineteenth  century  as  much  as 
to  the  first,  and  rather  more  to  Berlin  and  Oxford  and 
Boston  than  to  Capernaum,  was  not  the  Jesus  of  the 
gospels  any  more  than  was  the  Jesus  of  the  creeds. 
In  our  generation  we  have  once  more  become  content 
to  take  him  as  he  was  and  to  find  in  the  actual  first- 
century  Jewish  artisan  apocalyptic  teacher  something 


98  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

of  the  measure  of  religious  emancipation  which 
his  contemporaries  found  in  him.  We  have  reluc- 
tantly consented  to  give  up  our  efforts  to  explain 
away  his  eschatology  and  are  trying  to  see  it  as  a 
genuine  part  of  his  reHgious  experience.  This  at 
once  simplifies  enormously  the  task  of  the  interpreter 
of  the  gospels,  and  lets  him  for  the  first  time  deal 
candidly  with  his  sources.  Johannes  Weiss  opened 
our  eyes  here,  and  Albert  Schweitzer  gave  us  a  still 
more  vigorous  arousing;  English  and  American 
scholars  like  Lake  and  Burkitt  and  Scott  and  Bacon 
and  many  more  have  commended  this  understanding 
to  ever-increasing  numbers.  Of  Weiss's  epoch- 
making  little  book  {Die  Predigt  Jesu  vom  Reiche 
GoUes,  1892)  Schweitzer  says 

It  posits  the  third  great  either-or  in  the  investigation  of 
the  life  of  Jesus.  Strauss  posited  the  first:  either  purely 
historical  or  purely  supernatural;  the  second  the  Tilhinger 
and  Holtzmann  fought  out:  either  synoptic  or  Johannine; 
now  the  third:  either  eschatological  or  noneschatological.^ 

This  third  '^ either-or"  may  now  be  said  definitely 
to  have  been  decided;  Jesus'  mission  was  definitely 
eschatological  in  the  contemporary  sense.  He  did 
expect  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  in  his  own  genera- 
tion, and  he  did  go  to  his  death  beHeving  that  beyond 
the  gates  of  Hades  he  would  return  as  the  apocalyptic 
Son  of  Man  to  inaugurate  the  reign  of  God.  But 
having  said  this  we  have  said  nothing  as  to  the 
essential  contribution  of  Jesus.  This  program  he 
^  Geschichte  der  Leben-Jesu  Forschung  (2d  ed.,  1913),  p.  232. 


TEE  NEW  TESTAMENT  99 

found  ready  to  his  hand,  adopted  it,  and  adapted  it  to 
his  particular  situation.  The  ''consequente  Eschato- 
logie"  of  Schweitzer  errs  not  in  its  main  positions,  nor 
in  its  consistency,  but  in  its  sometimes  Hmited  vision. 
That  Jesus  fitted  into  this  framework  is  true;  that 
he  was  no  larger  than  it  is  untrue.  That  he  teaches 
the  ethics  of  the  Kingdom  is  true;  that  his  counsels  are 
merely  interim-ethics,  of  significance  only  as  the  special 
requirement  for  admission  to  the  Kingdom,  is  untrue. 
In  a  word,  Jesus  dreamed  that  God  destined  him 
to  the  messiahship,  but  that  destiny  he  accepted 
only  with  hesitation,  not  as  exaltation  and  glory,  but 
as  a  great  and  solemn  task,  a  supreme  service.  He 
soon  came  to  see  that  the  Jewish  leaders  meant  to 
have  his  Hfe;  shame,  suffering,  and  death,  then,  he 
accepted  as  steps  to  his  messiahship,  involved  in 
the  obHgation  his  Father  had  laid  upon  him.  The 
realization  of  that  exaltation,  therefore,  and  his 
entire  messianic  career  consequent  upon  it,  he  sets 
over  into  that  future  period  beyond  his  death.  It  in- 
volves resurrection  and  exaltation  to  heaven,  whence 
he  shall  come  as  the  Son  of  Man,  with  heavenly 
equipment,  to  fulfil  his  appointed  task.  Thus  the 
messiahship  is  entirely  absent  from  Jesus'  earthly 
life;  here,  though  he  has  prematurely  discovered  the 
career  that  is  in  store  for  him,  he  realizes  it  only  in 
anticipation;  in  no  sense  and  in  no  degree  does  he 
function  as  Messiah  before  his  death.  His  work  here 
and  now  is  simply  that  of  the  prophet,  announcing 
the  coming  crisis  and  preparing  men  for  it  by  moving 


lOO  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

them  to  change  of  heart  and  purifying  of  Kfe..  He 
is  here,  in  Holtzmann's  fehcitous  phrase,  his  own 
forerunner.  He  is  not  Messiah,  he  is  to  he;  the 
Kingdom  is  not  present,  but  future.  But  all  his 
counsels  as  to  the  conduct  of  human  life  have  inde- 
pendent validity;  they  represent  the  ethical  ideal 
of  this  reHgious  genius.  For  his  bidding  is:  Prepare 
to  enter  the  Kingdom  by  turning  about  and  living 
the  Kingdom-Hfe  now.  The  way  to  get  in  is  to  live 
as  if  you  were  already  in.  The  kind  of  life  which  is  to 
characterize  the  Kingdom,  perfect  in  its  fiHal  relation 
to  God  and  brotherly  relation  to  men — put  on  that 
kind  of  Hfe  now  and  when  the  Kingdom  dawns  you 
will  be  prepared  to  enter  in  and  live  as  its  citizens. 
Interim-ethics  would  be  the  counsel  to  do  some 
strange  thing,  to  fast  or  be  baptized  or  do  penance. 
Jesus'  ethics  are  the  ethics  of  eternity;  their  constant 
undertone  is :  Live  as  a  child  of  God.  So  soon  as  we 
eliminate  the  Kingdom  and  the  messiahship  from 
Jesus'  present  hfe,  and  set  them  in  that  expected 
future  beyond  the  grave,  we  shall  see  that  he  thought 
of  them  in  contemporary  fashion.  His  original 
contribution  is  not  here;  his  great  work,  where  his 
heart  is,  is  his  present  work  of  preparation.  He  was 
not  estabHshing  the  Kingdom,  but  only  gathering  a 
citizenship  for  it,  a  people  purified,  prepared,  and 
waiting.  When  he  died  the  Kingdom  had  in  no  sense 
or  degree  yet  come;  for  Paul  and  the  earhest  genera- 
tion it  was  in  no  sense  behind,  but  before,  an  object 
of   longing   and   hope,   and    their   work,    like   their 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  loi 

Master's,  was  to  increase  that  body  of  citizens.  The 
eschatology  of  the  primitive  church  was  that  of 
Jesus ;  he  had  not  been,  but  was  to  be,  Messiah,  and 
they  looked  up  into  heaven  for  his  advent,  not  his 
second  coming.  As  the  first  generation  passed  away, 
and  all  things  remained  as  they  were  from  the  founda- 
tion of  the  world,  the  promise  of  his  coming  grew 
dim  and  dimmer  and  the  faithful  began  to  look  back 
at  the  Master's  single  sojourn  upon  earth  and  to 
messianize  that  as  the  only  messianic  period  possible 
for  him.  Whereas  for  Paul  and  the  earUest  genera- 
tion Jesus'  messianic  status  began  only  with  his 
resurrection  or  ascension  (the  two  are  one),  and  his 
messianic  functioning  only  with  the  still  future 
parousia,  for  Mark  he  is  Messiah  from  the  baptism  on ; 
so  for  Luke,  who,  however,  carries  some  of  the 
messianic  dignity  back  into  the  infancy.  Matthew 
with  his  narrative  of  virgin  birth  (an  element  lacking 
in  the  original  text  of  Luke)  makes  Jesus'  birth  into 
himianity  his  birth  as  Son  of  God,  and  so  his  whole 
Hfe  from  the  cradle  the  career  of  Messiah.  The 
Fourth  Gospel  goes  farthest  in  this  direction,  making 
Jesus  the  Logos-Messiah  from  all  eternity,  so  that 
the  supreme  status  belongs  to  the  whole  period  of 
his  incarnation  and  equally  to  the  eternities  which 
precede  and  follow  it.  Yet  it  is  notable  that  none 
of  the  evangehsts  can  successfully  messianize  any 
period  before  the  actual  ministry.  In  substance  all 
follow  Mark:  the  beginning  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
the  Messiah,  the  Son  of  God,  John  came  baptizing. 


I02  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

But  all  such  intermingling  of  the  messianic  career 
with  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus  is  wholly  foreign  to  his 
own  conception  and  promise,  and  to  the  clear  under- 
standing of  Paul  and  his  contemporaries.  We  thus 
eliminate  from  the  mission  of  Jesus  that  eschato- 
logical  element  which  has  been  so  great  a  stumbling- 
block  to  some  by  transferring  it,  in  accordance  with 
his  own  mind,  to  the  time  subsequent  to  his  death. 
His  actual  Hfe  is  left  free  for  that  work  of  spiritual 
renewal  which  has  made  him  the  supreme  servant 
of  the  ages.  Doubtless  his  evaluation  as  Christ  was 
necessary  to  carry  his  person  and  his  influence  down 
to  succeeding  generations,  but  it  is  Jesus  who  saves 
you  and  me,  not  Christ,  just  as  it  was  Jesus  who 
saved  countless  penitent  men  and  women  who  fell 
at  his  feet  and  received  his  assurance  *'Thy  sins, 
which  are  many,  are  forgiven,"  before  he  was  ever 
known  or  dreamed  of  as  Christ. 

The  eschatologists  are  right;  Jesus  shared  literally 
the  messianic  hope  of  his  time.  He  expected  literally 
the  realization  of  the  Kingdom  within  his  own  genera- 
tion; he  devoutly  and  humbly  believed  that  when 
Messiah  should  be  sent  to  transform  this  present  evil 
world  into  the  new  heaven  and  new  earth  wherein 
should  dwell  righteousness,  it  would  be  upon  his  own 
shoulders  that  the  awful  burden  would  be  laid.  He 
did  not  "reinterpret,"  or  "spiritualize"  these  con- 
ceptions in  any  essential  way;  it  being  always 
remembered  that  they  were  by  no  means  fixed  and 
stereotyped  programs,  but  fluid  plastic  expressions 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  103 

of  an  ideal  hope.  What  his  hearers  meant  and 
understood  him  to  mean  by  his  language  was  what  he 
did  mean.  But  this  exalted  career  lies  for  him  beyond 
the  cross,  and  none  of  its  elements  are  mingled  with 
the  task  God  gave  him  to  do  as  Jesus  the  prophet  of 
Nazareth,  the  friend  of  sinners,  the  task  he  accom- 
plished so  supremely  that  those  whose  lives  he  had 
re-created  could  not  choose  but  accept  his  evaluation 
of  himself,  and  in  the  face  of  his  death  and  the 
prospect  of  their  own,  though  the  heavens  remained 
obstinately  shut  and  no  sign  of  his  longed-for  advent 
came  to  cheer  them,  could  still  affirm  in  unwavering 
confidence,  "God  hath  made  him  both  Lord  and 
Messiah,  this  Jesus  whom  you  crucified,  and  we  know 
that  he  shall  come,  even  as  he  said."  Thus  what 
Wrede  calls  '^the  messianic  secret  in  the  gospels"  has 
been  revealed,  not  indeed  in  precisely  Wrede's  fashion, 
nor  wholly  in  Schweitzer's,  but  through  the  working 
together  of  these  and  other  seekers  for  the  truth. 

Thus,  in  one  department  after  another  of  New 
Testament  study,  scholarship  today  is  approaching 
a  common  method  and  a  common  understanding. 
Wide  differences  in  detail  there  still  are  and  must 
necessarily  continue  to  be.  But  one  by  one  the 
great  fundamental  conclusions  are  being  estabhshed, 
and  our  science  moves  on  to  new  positions,  once 
sighted  afar  off  by  pioneers,  now  the  secure  ground  of 
all  forward-looking  scholars  whose  work  is  done  in 
freedom  and  with  an  eye  single  to  the  truth.  The 
great  accompHshment  of  our  day,  the  thing  which  is 


104  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

going  to  make  fruitful  the  researches  of  the 
immediately  succeeding  generations,  is  not  the 
settlement  of  any  specific  vexed  question,  but  that 
realization  that  the  New  Testament  is  purely  and 
simply  a  phenomenon  of  religion. 

There  used  to  be  a  department  of  our  science 
called  the  Theology  of  the  New  Testament — a  curious 
phrase,  as  if  documents  could  have  a  theology.  And 
it  was  so  studied  and  so  taught:  the  theology  of 
Hebrews,  the  theology  of  the  Apocalypse.  We 
demanded  the  dogmatic  content  of  impersonal  texts, 
without  concerning  ourselves  with  the  experience 
of  the  man  who  wrote  them,  who  might  be  unknown 
or  doubtful  and  therefore  need  not  bother  us.  Even 
where  the  writer  was  best  known,  ^'Paulinism"  was 
more  important  than  Paul,  and  might  be  extracted 
from  documents  whose  writer  was  certainly  poles 
asunder  from  Paul  in  religious  temperament.  All 
this  anomaly  is  changed  today,  we  may  gratefully 
bear  witness.  Titles  are  stubbornly  conservative, 
as  witness  those  in  the  Revised  Version  of  our  Bible, 
which  represent  tradition  rather  than  the  conviction 
of  the  revisers.  Our  seminary  catalogues  still  offer 
courses  in  the  Theology  of  the  New  Testament. 
Heinrich  Weinel's  great  work,  pubHshed  in  191 1,  is 
called,  in  accordance  with  the  previously  arranged 
scheme  of  the  editors,  Biblische  Theologie  des  Neuen 
Testaments,  but  Weinel  himself  gives  it  the  subtitle 
Die  Religion  Jesu  und  des  Urchristentums,  which  is 
the  subject  of  which  it  actually  treats.     The  whole 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  105 

book  is  written  out  of  the  new  attitude.     He  writes  in 
his  introduction : 

From  a  real  "biblical  theology,"  the  preaching  of  Jesus 
would  have  to  be  excluded  entirely;  a  theology  Jesus  simply 
did  not  have,  he  was  an  unlearned  man  of  action.  Even  Paul 
is  falsely  understood,  though  after  the  fashion  of  his  people  he 
was  a  trained  theologian,  if  he  is  considered  primarily  from  this 
point  of  view.     He  is  a  missionary,  and  all  his  letters  stand  in 

the  service  of  his  mission The  place  of  the  bibhcal 

theology  of  the  New  Testament  must  be  assumed  by  a  presen- 
tation of  the  religion  of  the  earliest  Christianity. 

Wilhelm  Wrede  of  Breslau  as  early  as  1897,  in  his 
brochure,  Uber  Aufgabe  und  Methode  der  sogenannten 
neiitestamentlichen  Theologie,  had  already  set  forth 
this  approach  to  the  subject  in  words  extraordinarily 
fruitful  for  the  future.     He  asks: 

What  are  we  really  seeking  ?  In  the  last  analysis  what  we 
actually  wish  to  know  is  this:  what  was  beheved,  thought, 
taught,  hoped,  demanded,  striven  for  in  Christianity's  eadiest 
day,  not  what  specific  documents  contain  on  the  subject  of 
faith,  doctrine,  hope,  and  the  like. 

This  is  a  comment  upon  the  caption :  ' '  New  Testament 
Theology."  But  it  may  serve  to  sum  up  the  status 
and  prospects  of  New  Testament  study  in  our  time. 
It  is  not  today,  still  less  will  it  be  in  days  to  come, 
study  of  the  New  Testament  as  such  at  all,  but  study 
of  the  religious  experience  which  those  precious  docu- 
ments enshrine  and  of  the  human  personalities  m  which 
that  experience  was  kindled  by  the  life-giving  touch 
of  Jesus,  from  which  it  was  transmitted  by  spiritual 
contagion  to  be  the  supreme  treasure  of  succeeding 
ages,  down  to  our  own,  and  after  us,  world  without  end. 

Clayton  Raymond  Bo  wen 


CHURCH  HISTORY 


HISTORY  IN  THEOLOGICAL  EDUCATION 

The  two  generations  covered  by  the  life  of  this 
school  of  sacred  learning  have  witnessed  the  progress 
of  one  of  the  most  momentous  changes  ever  wrought 
in  the  history  of  mankind.  If  we  are  willing  to  divest 
ourselves  for  a  moment  of  all  unessential  details  we 
may  readily  convince  ourselves  that  since  fire  was 
brought  down  from  heaven,  from  being  the  plaything 
of  the  gods  to  be  the  most  important  of  the  servants 
of  man,  there  have  taken  place  on  this  earth  only 
two  changes  of  the  first  magnitude  in  the  processes 
of  human  Hfe.  The  first  of  these  was  when  some 
unknown  genius  conceived  the  idea  of  subjecting  the 
wild  beasts  of  the  field  to  the  purposes  of  human 
industry.  That  change  occurred  so  long  ago  that  all 
memory  of  it  has  faded  from  the  minds  of  men. 
History  has  no  record  of  a  time  when  the  horse  and 
the  ox  were  not  ploughing  the  field  or  moving  the 
weights  too  heavy  for  men.  The  earliest  pictorial 
records  of  civiHzation  show  us  chariots  of  war  drawn  by 
noble  horses  splendidly  caparisoned,  and  back  of  these 
there  must  have  been  a  long,  long  story  of  struggle 
leading  to  the  final  domination  of  man  over  beast. 

The  second  great  material  stage  of  human  prog- 
ress is  marked  by  the  application  of  the  long-known 

io6 


CHURCH  HISTORY  107 

expansive  force  of  steam  to  the  mechanical  needs  of 
the  modern  world.  Between  these  two  epochs  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  the  fundamental  processes 
of  industry  had  not  essentially  changed.  The 
plough  which  turned  the  virgin  soil  of  Ohio  was  not 
greatly  superior  to  that  which  had  scratched  the 
furrows  of  the  Euphrates  valley.  The  rate  of  trans- 
portation of  goods  over  the  roads  of  this  country 
before  1840  was  slower  than  that  obtainable  on  the 
ancient  Roman  roads,  because  those  ancient  roads 
were  better  made. 

But  it  is  not  merely,  nor  even  primarily,  with  these 
vast  transformations  in  the  material  world  that  we, 
as  students  of  human  history,  are  concerned.  Paral- 
lel with  all  material  and  industrial  movement  goes 
on  also  a  movement  of  human  society  adapting  itself 
to  the  ever  shifting  forms  which  these  applications  of 
power  are  sure  to  take.  The  control  of  physical 
resources  by  one  man,  or  by  a  group  of  aristocrats,  or 
by  the  organized  workers  themselves  gave  rise  to 
those  poHtical  structures,  monarchies,  aristocracies, 
or  democracies,  the  story  of  whose  rise  and  fall  makes 
the  substance  of  that  unending  record  we  call  in  a 
special  sense  history.  And  once  more,  during  this 
whole  long  period,  from  the  beginning  of  recorded 
time  to  the  opening  decades  of  the  last  century,  these 
poHtical  adjustments  and  readjustments  went  on 
in  a  society  not  essentially  changed.  Privilege  at  the 
one  end,  slavery  at  the  other,  and  in  between  such 
shifting  associations  of  free  industrial  and  financial 


io8  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

groups  as  could  win  a  foothold  for  themselves  and 
prove  themselves  useful  to  society  as  a  whole. 

Then  came  the  greatest,  and,  so  far  as  we  are 
concerned,  the  final  change.  Within  the  memory  of 
men  now  living  this  astounding  development  of  human 
energy  we  call  the  modern  industrial  movement  has 
gone  on.  It  furnishes  us  with  one  of  the  backgrounds 
for  the  consideration  of  every  phenomenon  of  the 
modern  world,  but  it  is  only  one.  There  is  another 
of  equal,  perhaps  even  of  greater,  significance.  In 
the  years  during  which  the  first  steam  engines  were 
doing  their  pioneer  work  in  industry  a  group  of  eager 
experimenters  were  making  those  first  observations 
which  were  to  result  very  shortly  in  the  proclamation 
of  what  we  now  know  as  the  development  theory  of 
all  life.  How  vast  and  how  complete  a  transformation 
in  the  thoughts  of  men  upon  every  subject  this  new 
doctrine  was  to  make  only  we  of  the  elder  generation 
can  now  appreciate.  To  younger  men  who  have 
grown  up  in  the  atmosphere  of  what  the  elder  Agassiz 
used  to  call  ''devilopement,''  it  came  as  a  matter  of 
course,  but  during  the  earlier  years  of  this  School, 
the  battle  raged  with  a  fury  unequaled  in  any  sub- 
sequent encounter  of  ideas. 

On  the  one  side  were  ranged  all  those  forces 
which  seemed  to  find  support  only  in  what  we  now 
recognize  as  the  "spasmodic"  conception  of  life,  of 
life,  that  is  to  say,  broken  up  into  periods  of  time  and 
into  forms  of  existence  to  be  accounted  for  only  on 
the  theory  of  arbitrary  interruptions,  coming  in  from 


CHURCH  HISTORY  109 

some  vague  region  known  as  ''outside"  and  regulated 
by  some  still  more  vague  personaKty,  whose  essence 
was  arbitrariness,  and  whose  methods  were  inde- 
pendent of  human  volitions.  That  is  a  conception 
of  life  that  dies  hard.  It  is  far  from  dead  yet.  It 
appeals  to  all  that  sense  of  utter  dependence  upon 
something  outside  ourselves  which  to  many  minds 
is  only  another  way  of  expressing  religion. 

On  the  other  side  of  this  great  debate  were  enlisted 
from  the  start  all  those  other  elements  of  society 
which  found  the  chief  satisfactions  of  their  thought 
in  the  idea  of  unfailing  and  unending  law.  To  such 
minds  the  movement  of  all  life  seemed  to  be  only 
the  unfolding  of  one  vast  design.  They  were  not 
greatly  concerned  with  definitions  as  to  final  causes 
and  still  less  with  ultimate  purposes.  What  cap- 
tivated them  in  the  new  presentation  of  the  vital 
processes  was  its  suggestion  of  a  law  of  being  working 
itself  out  through  the  development  of  new  forms  and 
new  capacities  out  of  those  already  in  existence. 
To  them  the  statement  that  God  made  man  in  his 
own  image  contained  no  fantastic  impKcation  of  an 
artist  building  an  image  after  his  own  reflection  in  a 
mirror  and  then,  as  it  were,  winding  up  this  image  to 
run  its  brief  course  in  the  infinite  procession  of  things. 
It  meant  rather  that  man,  built  up  through  the  natural 
processes  he  was  now  just  beginning  to  observe  and  to 
interpret,  was  himself  a  part  of  the  universal  fife  and 
contained  within  himself  a  share  of  those  potentialities 
to  which  in  our  despair  we  give  the  name  of  "  divine. '^ 


no  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

The  issue  of  the  conflict  could  not  be  long  in  doubt. 
Assailed  at  first  with  a  blind  hostility,  the  new  ideas 
gradually  commended  themselves  to  an  increasing 
number  of  thinking  men  until  now  it  is  only  in  the 
last  strongholds  of  reactionism  that  they  are  nomi- 
nally condemned,  and  even  there  they  are  being 
restated  and  appropriated  to  the  purposes  of  orthodox 
propaganda.  At  first  too  these  ideas  were  captured 
by  over-ready  champions  and  presented  with  a 
crudeness  and  a  confidence  foreign  to  the  scientific 
spirit  of  Darwin  and  his  like.  They  had  to  be  pruned 
and  fostered  by  judicious  disciples  before  they  could 
be  set  free  to  do  their  noble  work  of  clarifying  and 
ordering  the  thought  of  men. 

But  what,  you  will  be  asking  by  this  time,  has 
all  this  to  do  with  the  condition  and  the  future  of 
church  history  ?  I  will  try  to  answer.  The  leaven  of 
these  transforming  ideas  began  to  work  in  a  world 
already  deeply  absorbed  in  an  entirely  new  enthusiasm 
for  historical  studies.  One  of  the  most  obvious 
reactions  against  the  French  imperiahsm  of  Napoleon 
was  a  revival  of  nationalist  zeal  throughout  Europe, 
and  one  of  the  first  expressions  of  this  nationalist 
spirit  was  the  impulse  to  investigate  every  detail 
of  the  past  experience  of  every  country.  Where 
political  activity  was  frowned  upon  and  promptly 
suppressed,  this  more  subtle  form  of  nationalist 
propaganda  was  directly  encouraged.  Vast  enter- 
prises looking  toward  the  collection  and  pubUcation 
of  the  historical  records  of  Germany,  France,  Italy, 


CHURCH  HISTORY  iii 

and  England  were  inaugurated  and  maintained,  and 
this  activity  goes  on  to  the  present  moment,  in 
diminished  volume,  but  with  unabated  energy. 

And  not  in  the  collection  of  material  alone. 
Monumental  histories,  covering  not  merely  the 
nations  then  in  existence,  but  including  every  country 
and  every  phase  of  the  ancient  world,  were  produced, 
and  the  great  European  countries  vied  with  each 
other  in  the  scope  and  magnitude  of  these  under- 
takings. What  especially  interests  us,  however,  is 
the  new  spirit  which  animated  all  this  eager  activity. 
Wholly  in  harmony  with  the  character  of  the  investi- 
gations of  Darwin  and  his  followers,  this  new  historical 
school  introduced  a  working  principle  that  was  nothing 
less  than  revolutionary.  Or  rather,  if  I  may  put  it 
in  this  way,  they  elevated  to  practical  importance  a 
principle  known  to  every  historian  from  Herodotus 
down,  professed  by  them  all  and  violated  in  greater 
or  less  degree  by  them  all.  That  is  the  principle, 
so  simple  that  it  hardly  needs  to  be  expressed,  that 
the  historian  should  make  no  statement  not  based 
upon  the  kind  of  evidence  by  which  such  a  statement 
can  be  proved.  No  one  doubted  the  soundness  of 
this  theory  of  historical  writing;  but  until  the  period 
we  are  speaking  of  very  Uttle  had  been  done  to  bring 
it  into  effective  practice.  Take,  for  example.  Gibbon. 
There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  Gibbon  read  faith- 
fully the  original  materials  on  which  his  narrative  is 
based,  but  he  nowhere  analyzes  in  detail  the  whole 
body  of  this  material.     He  by  no  means  swallows 


112  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

it  whole;  he  accepts  here  and  rejects  there,  but  his 
concern  is  more  with  assimilating  his  material  so 
that  it  will  reappear  in  a  new  and  impressive  form 
than  in  weighing  and  measuring  it  according  to  any 
principles  of  criticism.  Gibbon  published  his  great 
book  in  the  year  of  American  Independence. 

Now  it  is  precisely  this  process  of  critical  analysis 
that  distinguishes  the  work  of  the  nineteenth-century 
historical  school.  Niebuhr  wrote  his  history  of  Rome 
between  1811  and  1832.  He  was  the  first  to  lay 
profane  hands  upon  the  sacred  traditions  of  the  early 
period  and  to  do  this  in  pursuance  of  a  definite  theory 
of  historical  criticism.  It  was  his  merit  to  make 
clear  once  for  all  that  it  was  the  first  business  of  the 
historian  so  to  examine  and  co-ordinate  the  whole 
body  of  his  material  that  his  narrative  should  be  able 
to  stand  the  test  of  the  most  rigid  inquiry.  It  was 
the  method  of  all  true  science  applied  to  a  subject 
that  until  then  had  hardly  been  reckoned  among  the 
sciences  at  all.  The  Muse  of  History  had  heretofore 
been  represented  with  a  pen;  henceforth  the  spade 
was  to  be  added  to  her  necessary  equipment. 

It  has  been  customary  to  speak  of  this  new  epoch 
as  a  German  contribution  to  civilization,  and  there  is 
no  doubt  that  the  qualities  of  the  modern  German 
people  were  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  working  out 
of  all  the  detail  of  the  process.  But  the  work  has 
been  done  by  all  the  civilized  peoples  of  Europe  with 
such  variations  as  the  national  genius  of  each  natu- 
rally produced.     The  method  has  been  one,  and  the 


CHURCH  HISTORY  113 

result  is  a  magnificent  volume  both  of  material  and  of 
interpretation,  upon  which  all  future  production  will 
have  to  be  based. 

Let  us  ask  ourselves  for  a  moment  what  has  been 
the  permanent  content  of  this  result.  It  has  given 
us  in  the  first  place  a  new  conception  of  the  meaning 
of  the  word  "historical. "  At  a  conference  of  teachers 
and  writers  of  history  I  was  engaged  in  conversation 
by  a  person  whom  I  judged  to  belong  to  the  race  of 
so-called  ''Educators"  and  who  proceeded  to  enlighten 
me  with  his  views  about  history.  "The  trouble  with 
our  history  now-a-days, "  he  declared,  "is  that  it  is 
too  retrospective, "  and  during  the  rather  bad  quarter 
of  an  hour  which  he  gave  me  this  phrase  kept  recur- 
ring like  a  refrain  in  his  monologue:  "Our  history 
now-a-days  is  too  retrospective!"  Precisely  what  he 
meant  I  did  not  discover.  Whether  he  had  some 
vague  idea  that  history  ought  to  concern  itself  more 
with  the  present  or  with  the  future  was  not  clear, 
nor  in  his  case  did  it  greatly  matter.  He  had  got 
his  phrase,  and  that  for  him  was  the  main  thing. 
In  his  vacant  fashion  he  was  expressing  the  notion 
that  the  attention  of  the  educators  of  our  day  was 
turning  too  much  to  the  past  and  to  that  extent 
neglecting  what  he  would  doubtless  have  called  "live 
issues."  I  refer  to  this  only  as  an  illustration  of  a 
prevaiHng  error  in  the  definition  of  the  historical. 

To  say  that  history  concerns  itself  with  the  past 
is  to  indicate  only  one  of  its  distinctive  characteristics. 
Another  of  these  is  that  history  deals  with  an  endless 


114  TEEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

series  of  sequences  of  cause  and  effect,  and  it  is  this 
aspect  of  the  historical  that  specially  interests  us  here. 
For  it  is  in  this  law  of  sequence  that  historical  study 
found  its  closest  analogy  with  the  scientific  movement. 
A  new  canon  of  historical  criticism  was  set  up  and, 
allowing  for  human  frailty,  fairly  rigidly  maintained. 
That  canon  was  that  in  this  chain  of  sequences  there 
can  be  no  breaks,  nowhere  and  nohow.  This  is  by 
no  means  to  say  that  the  connecting  links  between 
the  cause  and  the  effect  are  always  to  be  discerned. 
If  human  insight  could  accomplish  this  feat  we 
should  be  gods,  not  men.  What  was  demanded  was 
that  we  should  recognize  the  fact  of  such  connection 
and  then  in  all  humility  go  as  far  as  we  can  in  trying  to 
understand  it.  Above  all  else  the  teaching  of  this 
new  school  was  that  in  this  attempt  to  understand 
there  was  no  room  for  fear.  No  matter  to  what 
unforeseen  results  our  boldest  inquiries  might  lead, 
there  was  only  one  thing  to  do,  to  accept  them  and 
fit  them  in  as  best  we  might  into  the  whole  volume 
of  discovered  truth.  The  historian  and  the  scientist 
were  to  work  by  the  same  methods  and  be  guided  by 
the  same  faith  in  the  permanent  value  of  careful  re- 
search and  honest  judgment. 

A  colleague  of  mine  in  the  field  of  geology  sent  out 
one  of  his  most  promising  pupils  to  teach  in  a  remote 
institution  of  learning.  On  his  arrival  the  young 
man  was  assured  by  his  departmental  chief  that  the 
institution  justly  prided  itself  upon  its  liberaHty. 
He  was  to  expound  the  principles  of  geology  absolutely 


CHURCH  HISTORY  115 

as  he  believed  right,  but — with  a  certain  hesitation — • 
when  he  came  to  explain  the  creation  of  the  earth 
he  would  do  well  to  consult  the  president!  No  such 
feeble  faith  could  long  resist  the  assault  of  true 
learning  and  invincible  courage,  and  these  were  si- 
lently doing  their  revealing  work. 

Occupation  with  the  past  and  a  method  depending 
upon  the  sequence  of  cause  and  effect — these  are  two 
of  the  elements  which  go  to  make  up  the  definition  of 
the  historical  process.  There  is  a  third  of  no  less 
importance,  touching  upon  the  nature  of  the  evidence 
upon  which  the  so-called  truth  of  history  must  rest. 
That  evidence  is  absolutely  limited  to  the  witness  of 
human  beings.  No  matter  whether  this  witness  be 
borne  orally  or  in  writing,  by  document  or  by  tradi- 
tion, it  becomes  historical  evidence  only  so  far  as  it 
relates  to  things  knowable  by  ordinary  human  powers 
and  transmissible  by  ordinary  human  means.  It 
takes  no  cognizance  of  revelations  or  miracles  or 
dreams  or  visions,  of  honest  intentions,  sincere 
hallucinations,  rumors  however  confidently  beHeved 
in,  or  legends  however  widely  accepted.  The  chal- 
lenge which  the  historian  must  face  is  the  same  as 
that  presented  to  the  witness  in  a  court  of  law. 
Hearsay  evidence  will  be  refused.  A  legal  colleague 
of  mine  tells  a  story  of  a  witness  who  said:  *'I  was 
sitting  in  my  office,  when  I  heard  some  one  in  the 
corridor,  and  I  said  to  myself  .  .  .  ."  "Stop!'*  said 
the  opposing  counsel  "I  object!  That  is  hearsay  evi- 
dence. "     No  less  rigid  is  the  standard  of  the  historian. 


ii6  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

But  it  will  be  said  that  truth  reached  by  this 
method  must  always  suffer  from  the  frailties  of  human 
nature.  Perfectly  true;  the  same  is  true  also  of  the 
decisions  of  every  court  of  law.  The  honest  historian 
knows  that  what  he  calls  truth  is  only  a  high  degree  of 
probability,  but  just  as  the  civil  community  finds  its 
safeguard  in  the  acceptance  of  the  decisions  of  its 
lawfully  constituted  courts,  so  the  world  does  best 
when  it  accepts  the  results  of  the  highest  historical 
scholarship  it  can  command.  It  is  only  a  savage  com- 
munity that  tries  to  even  things  up  by  shooting  the 
judge. 

So  far  I  have  been  speaking  of  history  in  general, 
meaning  thereby  what  we  all  mean  in  ordinary  dis- 
course, the  record  of  political  and  social  institutions 
as  they  have  been  shaped  by  economic  and  racial 
struggle.  I  come  now  to  that  phase  of  history  which 
is  my  special  topic,  the  history  of  the  Christian 
church,  and,  if  some  of  the  considerations  to  which 
I  have  already  called  your  attention  have  seemed  to 
you  so  obvious  as  to  be  mere  commonplaces,  I  fear 
I  shall  only  be  adding  another  of  the  same  sort  if  I 
remind  you  that  the  history  of  the  church  is  only  one 
chapter  in  the  history  of  mankind  as  a  whole.  Well, 
commonplace  or  not,  it  is  true  that  to  bring  this  fact 
to  the  conscience  of  the  thinking  world  has  been  the 
hardest  struggle  of  the  last  two  generations  of  scholars 
and  teachers.  To  apply  to  the  records  of  the  church 
the  same  hard,  cold  standards  of  critical  judgment 
that  were  being  appHed  to  the  records  of  other  forms 


CHURCH  HISTORY  117 

of  institutional  life  seemed  to  the  men  of  the  early 
nineteenth  century  to  be  a  kind  of  blasphemy.  To 
ask  in  regard  to  these  records:  When  were  they 
written?  Who  wrote  them?  Were  their  alleged 
authors  in  position  to  know  whereof  they  were 
speaking?  Were  they  likely  to  be  actuated  by  any 
personal  or  partisan  motives  in  preparing  their 
accounts  ?  Have  these  records  come  down  to  us  as 
they  were  made,  or  have  they  been  tampered  with 
by  ignorance  or  partisanship?  All  these  questions 
seemed  like  an  impertinence  to  multitudes  of  faithful 
souls. 

The  beginnings  of  your  School  coincide  pretty 
nearly  with  the  early  stages  of  this  bitter  conflict. 
Strauss's  Lehen  Jesu  appeared  in  1835.  The  monu- 
mental activity  of  Ferdinand  Christian  Baur  extended 
from  about  1840  to  i860.  Many  names,  laudatory 
and  abusive,  were  given  to  the  school  of  criticism  of 
which  he  was  the  founder,  but  the  name  by  which  its 
members  specially  elected  to  be  called  was  the 
*' historical  school."  They  claimed  above  all  else  to 
be  working  historically,  and  by  that  they  meant  just 
what  I  have  been  here  trying  to  suggest,  the  appK- 
cation  to  the  documents  of  Christianity  the  same 
tests  as  to  trustworthiness  which  were  being  appHed 
in  every  other  field  of  human  organization. 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  methods  of  this  new 
process  should  have  been  exaggerated,  and  this 
exaggeration  was  still  more  emphasized  by  the  sys- 
tem of  philosophy  which  was  dominating  the  most 


Ii8  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

advanced  thought  of  the  day.    The  fascinating  propo- 
sitions of  the  Hegelian   School  found  one  of  their 
most  brilliant  illustrations  in  the  sweeping  deductions 
of  Baur  and  his  associates.     The  records  of  early 
Christianity,  it  was  said,  must  be  studied  in  the  light 
of  that  invariable  process  of  conflict  and  reconciliation 
that  formed  the  shibboleth  of  HegeKanism.     Not 
theological  discussions,  but  historical  antitheses  were 
the   stuff   out   of   which    the    only    soHd    structure 
of    history    could    be    built.     And    here    were   the 
antitheses  ready  to  hand.     Christianity,  as  everyone 
knew,  was  preached  by  a  Hebrew  to  Hebrews  and 
only  in  a  comparatively  later  stage  and  in  face  of 
bitter  opposition  was  it  so  interpreted  that  it  could 
be  made  acceptable  to  the  gentile  world.     Here  then 
you  had  the  perfect  field  for  the  Hegelian  formula. 
First  the  conflict  between  Hebrew  and  Gentile,  and 
then  the  reconcihation.     Consequently  here  was  the 
key  for  the  understanding  of  all  early  documents. 
It  was  not  very  difficult  to  sort  out  such  of  these  as 
were  distinctly  Hebrew  or  were  distinctly  PauHne, 
but  there  were  others  as  to  which  this  sharpness  of 
distinction  could  not  be  maintained.     What  about 
these?    Why,  obviously,  these  must  be  attempts  at 
reconcihation  between  the  two.     Further,  since  the 
Hebrew  writings  were  likely  to  be  the  older,   the 
PauHne  later,  and  since  there  could  not  be  recon- 
ciliation until  there  was  something  to  reconcile,  it 
beautifully  followed  that  here  was  a  chronological 
scheme  into  which  the  whole  of  the  early  Christian 


CHURCH  HISTORY  119 

literature  could  be  fitted  with  quite  satisfying 
completeness. 

It  was  a  pretty  game  and  it  worked  out  to  an 
astonishing  measure  of  success.  The  fault  with  it, 
as  with  so  many  other  feats  of  German  ingenuity — 
or  ingenuousness — was  that  it  was  too  complete. 
It  laid  itself  open  to  the  charge  of  violating  the  very 
principle  it  professed  to  illustrate,  and  it  needed 
only  the  mole-work  of  far  inferior  minds  to  show 
its  weak  points.  No  one,  I  suppose,  would  now 
undertake  to  defend  the  critical  results  of  the  Tub- 
ingen Historical  School  in  their  entirety,  and  yet  I  do 
not  hesitate  to  say  that  it  marks  by  far  the  most 
important  moment  in  the  whole  progress  of  church 
history  studies.  It  estabhshed  once  for  all  the 
foundation  on  which  all  future  study  and  teaching 
were  to  be  built.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say,  as  Adolf 
Harnack  said  of  himself,  that  every  writer  on  church 
history  since  i860  stands  on  the  shoulders  of  Ferdi- 
nand Christian  Baur.  The  foundation  has  been 
broadened,  but  it  could  hardly  be  deepened,  for  it 
touches  the  bedrock  of  a  truly  scientific  method. 
Through  its  support  church  history  has  made  its  way 
into  the  company  of  the  sciences. 

It  would  be  going  too  far  to  say  that  there  have 
been  no  backward  steps  in  this  general  movement 
forward.  The  acceptance  of  a  truly  historical  method 
in  church  history  has  often  been  a  grudging  one. 
Many  devices  have  been  adopted  to  save  the  remnants 
of  the   ancient  spasmodic  doctrine  of  Hfe   and   to 


120  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

employ  the  language  while  denying  the  spirit  of 
fearless  and  unsparing  criticism.  Men  are  still  play- 
ing with  definitions  of  the  miraculous,  definitions 
of  a  thing  which  does  not  exist.  Belief  in  tlie  miracu- 
lous exists  indeed,  as  it  has  always  existed,  but  that 
is  a  problem  of  human  psychology,  not  one  of  physical 
science.  The  Roman  Cathohc  church  is  enjoying 
one  of  its  moments  of  jubilant  expansion  over  the 
belated  discovery  that  Joan  of  Arc  was — or  is,  which- 
ever may  be  the  correct  tense — a  saint,  and  everyone 
knows  that  the  final  test  of  official  sainthood  is  the 
performance  of  a  required  number  of  miracles  duly 
attested  by  the  witness  of  persons  who,  simply  because 
they  are  human,  are  absolutely  incapable  of  bearing 
witness  to  anything  not  perceptible  by  ordinary 
human  faculties. 

Such  phenomena  as  this  are  for  the  moment 
discouraging.  They  prove  how  reluctant  people  are 
to  follow  out  any  chain  of  rational  thought  to  its 
inevitable  consequences — to  use  the  language  of  our 
present  interest — how  hard  it  is  to  get  people  to 
think  historically.  And  yet,  taking  the  large  result, 
it  is  certain  that  the  historical  achievement  of  the  last 
half-century  has  been  one  of  its  greatest  triumphs. 

The  reaction  of  these  European  discussions  upon 
American  thought  could  not  be  long  delayed.  The 
extraordinary  political,  economic,  and  social  advance 
of  Germany  after  the  Franco-Prussian  War  attracted 
to  her  all  those  young,  eager  spirits  who  were  dis- 
satisfied with  the  academic  opportunities  at  home 


CHURCH  HISTORY  I2i 

and  were  seeking  for  the  something  better  they 
vaguely  desired  but  were  too  immature  to  formulate 
for  themselves.  They  joyfully  embarked  on  the 
Great  Adventure,  and  came  back,  some  of  them  with 
a  blind  enthusiasm  for  everything  German,  others 
with  a  better  balance  of  judgment  between  the 
really  good  things  Germany  had  given  them  and  the 
overblown  national  conceit  which  nulhfied  so  much 
of  the  good,  in  other  words,  a  reasonable  mingling 
of  admiration  for  German  accompHshment  and  detes- 
tation of  the  German  national  character. 

I  was  one  of  the  earHest  in  this  company  of  ardent 
youths  who  came  home  to  challenge  the  academic 
world  of  America  to  give  them  a  chance.  When  I 
began  my  service  in  1876  the  conditions  of  historical 
instruction  in  America  had  but  one  encouraging 
aspect,  namely,  that  there  was  a  great  work  to  do  and 
very  few  workmen  ready  to  do  it.  In  one  of  our 
most  important  Eastern  colleges  the  only  teaching  of 
history  was  given  during  one-half  of  the  Senior  year 
by  the  professor  of  the  harmony  of  science  and 
rehgion!  Any  respectable  gentleman  with  a  reputa- 
tion for  much  "reading"  was  fitted  to  sit  behind  a 
book  and  hear  the  recitations  of  reluctant  under- 
graduates. 

As  to  church  history,  the  situation  was,  I  think, 
a  little  better.  The  very  necessities  of  theological 
controversy  compelled  a  certain  acquaintance  with 
the  general  course  of  historical  events,  and  a  certain 
famiharity    with    at    least    the    great    fundamental 


122  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

documents  of  the  Christian  faith.  It  meant  a  good 
deal  that  the  first  history  of  the  church  to  be  written 
with  a  truly  historical  purpose,  the  still  useful  treatise 
of  Neander,  should  be  translated  by  an  American 
scholar  as  early  as  1847  ^.nd  should  be  widely 
accepted  as  the  basis  of  instruction  in  theological 
schools.  The  fatal  thing  about  this  instruction  was 
its  isolation  from  the  study  of  history  in  general. 
As  a  rule  the  teachers  of  church  history  were  men  not 
specially  trained  in  historical  study.  They  were 
almost  without  exception  clergymen,  and  in  far  too 
many  cases  were  clergymen  who  had  ceased  to  be 
useful  in  the  proper  work  of  their  profession. 

Where  the  first  impulse  to  better  things  came 
from  I  am  unable  to  say,  but  certainly  one  of  the 
earliest  indications  of  a  change  is  to  be  found  in  the 
terms  of  foundation  of  the  Winn  Professorship  at 
Cambridge,  of  which  I  had  later  the  honor  to  be  the 
first  incumbent.  This  foundation  took  place  in 
1876  through  a  decree  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Massachusetts  allowing  certain  trustees  under  the 
will  of  Jonathan  Bowers  Winn,  a  Unitarian  layman, 
to  devote  a  portion  of  his  bequest  to  this  purpose. 
The  bequest  had  been  made  to  the  trustees  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Unitarian  denomination,  and  the  decree 
of  court  sets  forth  among  its  numerous  ''whereases" 
that  ''Ecclesiastical  History  is  an  essential  department 
of  study  for  Unitarians,  as  well  as  other  ministers, 
and  is  of  the  highest  value  in  the  religious  education 
of  Unitarians,  as  of  other  youths."     In  enumerat- 


CHURCH  HISTORY  123 

ing  the  duties  of  the  professor  to  be  appointed  the 
decree  says: 

He  shall  also  give  instruction  ....  on  such  subjects 
as  the  religious  history  of  the  world;  the  relations  of  secular 
and  church  history;  the  influence  of  Christianity  on  the 
Roman  Law,  of  pre-existing  institutions,  rehgions  and  philoso- 
phies on  Christianity;  and  the  origin,  history  and  scope  of 
the  canon  Law. 

Quite  a  sufficient  program,  you  will  agree,  to  engage 
the  best  endeavors  of  at  least  a  half-dozen  professors, 
and  needless  to  remark  that  the  later  incumbent 
never  succeeded  in  wholly  fulfilling  its  require- 
ments. 

I  quote  this  interesting  document  here  as  a  sig- 
nificant indication  that,  at  least  so  far  as  Harvard 
University  and  the  Unitarian  denomination  were 
concerned,  the  traditional  separation  between  so- 
called  secular  and  church  history  was  at  an  end. 
My  own  appointment  to  the  Winn  Professorship 
six  years  later,  in  1882,  I  felt  to  be  a  still  further 
expression  of  this  purpose,  for  I  had  been  during  just 
that  interval  of  six  years  a  teacher  of  European 
history,  dealing  with  the  church  only  as  one  among 
the  institutions  of  European  society.  So  far  as  I 
have  had  any  influence  upon  the  young  men  now 
veterans  in  the  pulpits  and  the  academic  chairs  of  all 
Christian  denominations  throughout  the  country,  it 
has  been  in  this  direction  of  a  purely  historical  con- 
ception of  the  origin  and  progress  of  Christianity, 
both  on  its  institutional  and  on  its  doctrinal  side. 


124  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

There  is  one  further  aspect  of  the  Winn  decree  of 
almost  equal,  perhaps  in  its  results  of  even  greater, 
importance.  Several  times  in  the  course  of  its 
specifications  it  repeats  the  provision  that  the  instruc- 
tion given  under  its  endowment  shall  always  be  open 
to  all  students  of  every  department  of  the  University. 
That  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  the  history 
of  the  church  is  an  essential  part  of  a  knowledge  of 
history  in  general,  without  any  special  reference  to 
professional  equipment.  In  pursuance  of  this  pre- 
scription the  courses  in  church  history  were  accepted 
by  the  faculty  of  arts  and  sciences  and  incorporated 
with  the  offerings  of  the  department  of  history.  The 
attendance  of  arts  students  has  ordinarily  been 
distinctly  larger  than  that  of  theological  candidates, 
and,  so  far  as  diligent  inquiry  could  discover,  the 
minghng  of  the  two  has  been  acceptable  to  both. 
In  this  past  generation  there  have  been  few  can- 
didates for  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy  in 
history  who  have  not  chosen  some  topic  for  their 
general  examination  from  the  field  of  church  history. 

I  speak  of  these  personal  observations  only  as 
illustrating  the  progress  which  the  study  of  church 
history  has  made  as  an  essential  element  of  American 
education.  I  need  only  to  remind  you  that  the  man 
to  whom  all  of  us  look  up  as  the  most  distinguished 
American  historical  scholar  of  his  time,  Mr.  Henry 
C.  Lea,  worked  almost  entirely  within  this  field. 
Today  there  are  no  more  profound  students  of  Euro- 
pean church  history  here  than  James  W.  Thompson, 


CHURCH  HISTORY  125 

of  Chicago,  Charles  H.  Haskins,  of  Cambridge, 
Rufus  Jones,  of  Haverford,  and  George  L.  Burr,  of 
Cornell,  though  none  of  these  is  technically  a  pro- 
fessor of  the  subject. 

In  the  year  1884  I  had  the  privilege  of  being  one 
in  a  little  group  of  historical  students  who  met 
at  Saratoga  and  organized  the  American  Historical 
Association,  since  grown  to  be  the  central  organ  of 
historical  scholarship  in  the  country.  One  of  the 
most  interesting  problems  of  its  early  years  was  the 
question  of  church  history  studies  in  their  relation  to 
the  work  of  the  Association  as  a  whole,  a  question 
which  became  more  acute  through  the  action  of  the 
church  historians  themselves.  Not  long  after  the 
founding  of  the  Association,  in  1888  it  was  again  my 
fortune  to  be  present  at  a  meeting  of  teachers  of 
church  history  at  the  house  of  Professor  Philip 
Schaff  of  Union  Seminary,  called  to  consider  the 
formation  of  a  Church  History  Society.  It  was  my 
opinion  at  the  time,  and  in  this  I  was  supported  by 
Professor  George  P.  Fisher,  of  Yale,  that  the  wise 
policy  would  be  to  join  with  the  Association  as  a 
separate  section,  but  this  opinion  was  perhaps  for- 
tunately overruled,  and  under  the  vigorous  leader- 
ship of  Dr.  Schaff  the  new  Society  went  on  for  several 
years  as  an  independent  organization.  Later  it  was 
incorporated  with  the  Association,  but  meanwhile 
this  body  had  grown  to  such  portentous  dimensions 
that  the  Society  felt  itself  crowded  into  corners  and 
cramped  in  its  activities,  and  again  it  separated  and 


126  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

enjoyed  for  a  time  the  devoted  service  of  Dr.  Samuel 
Macauley  Jackson  as  its  guiding  spirit.  Since  his 
lamented  death  it  has  been  once  more  placed  on  a 
new  footing  and  is  doing  efficient  work  in  bringing 
together  professional  students  and  teachers  of  church 
history  and  in  publishing  their  results. 

So  far  as  organization  goes  we  may,  therefore, 
regard  the  present  conditions  of  our  subject  as  most 
encouraging.  It  holds  an  honorable  place  in  academic 
programs,  it  is  professed  by  men  who  have  usually 
had  a  long  and  technical  preparation  for  this  special 
work.  As  a  rule  these  men  are  duly  impressed  with 
the  importance  of  maintaining  a  sound  relation 
between  church  history  and  other  historical  pursuits. 
What  then  shall  we  say  as  to  the  prospects  for  the 
future  ?  Prophecy  is  not  the  business  of  the  historian 
and  I  am  not  concerned  here  with  giving  any  glowing 
picture  of  what  the  coming  years  may  bring.  It  is 
always  the  tendency  of  the  historian  to  measure  the 
future  by  the  past  and  to  restrain  the  natural  impulse 
of  sound  human  nature  to  see  it  with  the  eyes  of 
hope  and  faith  rather  than  with  those  of  experience. 

One  thing  is  certain :  organization  and  equipment 
may  do  much  in  stimulating  an  interest  already 
existing,  but  they  can  do  little  to  create  such  an 
interest.  The  real  problem  is:  to  what  extent  his- 
torical studies  are  going  to  attract  the  best  minds 
among  our  academic  youth,  and  we  may  be  fairly 
sure  that  such  attraction  will  represent  well  enough 
the  interest  of  our  community  in  general  for  the 


CHURCH  HISTORY  127 

historical  view  of  present  problems.  So  far  as  the 
schools  of  theology  are  concerned,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  two  other  interests  have  crowded  upon 
the  more  distinctively  historical  studies  with  almost 
crushing  effect,  during  the  past  generation.  These 
are  the  speculative  and  the  humanitarian,  especially 
the  latter.  ''Social  ethics,"  the  application  of  the 
Christian  moraUty  to  the  relations  of  man  with  man 
in  everyday  contact,  has  claimed  the  attention  of 
many  of  our  most  promising  youth  almost  to  the 
exclusion  of  every  other  consideration.  There  have 
been  times  when  it  required  all  the  faith  and  courage 
one  had  to  maintain  the  due  proportion  of  values 
for  the  historical  foundations  without  which  the 
theological  speculations  and  the  humanitarian  enthu- 
siasms of  the  moment  are  floating  about  in  a  nebulous 
twilight  of  ineffective  vagueness. 

Especially  has  this  question  been  forced  upon  us 
by  the  incredible  catastrophe  of  a  world-war.  In 
the  early  part  of  the  year  19 16  I  found  myself  saying 
to  an  audience  of  Harvard  graduates  that  the  most 
surprising  thing  about  the  war  was  the  number  of 
impossible  things  that  had  happened.  The  war  was 
impossible  because  mankind  had  become  too  highly 
civilized;  if  war  should  happen  it  could  last  only  a 
few  weeks  because  the  combatants  would  all  be 
killed  off  by  that  time;  it  could  not  go  on  long 
because  the  frightful  cost  would  beggar  all  the  nations 
engaged,  and  yet  here  it  was  after  a  year  and  a  half, 
going  on  with  increasing  bitterness  and  intensity, 


128  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

and,  as  we  now  know,  destined  to  go  on  for  three 
years  longer. 

It  would  seem  as  if  this  were  enough  to  make  men 
see  the  futility  of  all  prophecy;  but  the  too  ready 
tongues  of  our  talking  people  still  wag  bravely  on 
telling  all  who  wdll  listen  how  things  are  going  to  be. 
On  the  one  hand  we  are  told  that  the  historic  instinct 
has  been  so  keenly  aroused  among  the  nations  that 
for  a  generation  to  come  there  is  going  to  be  no  more 
active  interest  than  the  study  of  the  past  as  the 
final  justification  of  national  aspirations.  On  the 
other  hand  we  are  assured  that  the  Great  War  marks 
an  epoch  between  all  the  outworn  traditions  of  the 
past  and  a  golden  future  based  upon  a  new  con- 
ception of  social  order,  of  social  rights  and  social 
obligations.  Into  this  new  world  religion  is  to  enter 
as  a  necessary  guaranty  of  its  most  important  rela- 
tions, or  else  it  is  to  disappear  entirely  among  the 
rubbish  of  the  discarded  past. 

My  own  judgment  is  that,  as  has  always  been  the 
case  with  oracular  utterances,  these  widely  differing 
prophecies  mean  only  that  the  ancient  conflicts  are 
to  go  on,  under  new  forms,  it  is  true,  but  with  essen- 
tially the  same  real  issues.  In  the  future,  as  in  the 
past,  it  is  going  to  be  the  perpetual  function  of  calmly 
thinking  men  to  utilize  the  lessons  of  experience  in 
judging  the  problems  of  the  present  as  they  offer 
themselves  for  solution.  What  we  have  to  insist 
upon  is  that  a  rational  balance  be  maintained  in  our 
institutions  of  learning  between  these  two  extremes. 


CHURCH  HISTORY  129 

If  we  depart  too  widely  from  the  heritage  of  the  past, 
neglect  our  studies  of  language  and  history,  and  let 
ourselves  be  led  astray  by  the  will-o-the-wisp  of 
*' practical  efficiency, "  then  our  youth  will  find 
themselves  playing  about  with  the  loose  ends  of  a 
sham  science  and  an  impotent  philosophy.  If,  on 
the  other  hand  we  sit  back  in  a  dull  insistence  upon 
tradition  without  making  clear  to  our  youth  its  vital 
relation  to  the  pressing  problems  of  their  immediate 
present,  we  shall  find  ourselves  left  high  and  dry  on 
the  arid  heights  of  our  own  self-satisfaction  while 
they  wander  without  guidance  in  the  alluring  valleys 
of  untried  experiment. 

This  present  anniversary  has  a  peculiar  significance 
in  this  respect.  It  is  the  anniversary  of  a  school 
which  does  not  hesitate  to  call  itself  by  the  honorable 
name  of  Unitarian,  and  there  is  no  better  definition 
of  the  Unitarian  mind  than  this:  it  is  the  historical 
mind.  It  builds  its  faith,  not  upon  the  fine-spun 
theologies  of  Greek  ingenuity,  nor  upon  the  majestic 
institutions  of  Roman  administrative  genius,  but 
upon  the  actual  historical  facts  of  the  mission  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.  It  studies  the  history  of  the 
expansion  of  Christianity  from  the  beginning  to  the 
present  day  by  the  method  we  have  been  defining 
as  the  historical  method,  that  is,  by  collecting  and 
co-ordinating  all  available  materials  and  then  weigh- 
ing and  measuring  them  by  the  standards  of  human 
evidence.  It  accepts  with  reverent  submission  the 
idea  of  a  single  central  Power  making  for  righteousness 


I30  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

throughout  the  universe  of  things,  but  it  sees  the 
working  of  that  Power  in  human  affairs  only  through 
the  instincts  and  capacities  of  our  strugghng  human 
nature.  It  rejects  with  scorn  the  degrading  con- 
ception that  human  nature  is  essentially  base,  and 
emphasizes  at  every  point  all  that  it  has  of  nobility 
and  of  kinship  with  the  divine. 

There  can  be  no  better  preparation  for  young 
men  in  facing  the  infinite  perplexities  of  the  modern 
world  than  a  thorough  training  in  the  spirit  and 
method  of  this  historical  process.  It  will  help  to 
keep  their  feet  upon  the  solid  ground  of  well-tried 
experience,  and  it  will  kindle  their  imagination  also 
with  the  possibilities  of  new  adjustments.  It  will 
defend  them  against  the  flippant  promises  of  a 
nearby  millennium  and  help  them  to  recognize  as 
they  appear  the  signs  of  a  true  progress  toward 
higher  and  ever  higher  ideals  of  life  upon  this  earth. 

To  such  a  future  the  traditions  of  this  place  point 
with  no  uncertain  prophecy.  Remaining  faithful 
to  the  spirit  of  its  past,  it  may  look  forward  with 
renewed  hopefulness  and  courage  to  wider  influence 
and  a  success  measured  only  by  the  resources, 
material  and  spiritual,  that  shall  be  placed  at  its 
command. 

Ephraim  Emerton 


SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY 


THE  MODERN  THEOLOGICAL  METHOD 

Fortunately  a  large  part  of  the  organism  of 
studies  which  constitutes  theology  has  won  a  scientific 
method,  with  the  result  of  a  widespread  agreement 
as  to  facts  and  the  meaning  of  facts.  The  exegesis 
of  the  Bible  was  once  so  arbitrary  that,  as  Dean 
Colet  said,  theologians  could  prove  a  point  of  faith  as 
easily  out  of  a  fable  of  Ovid  as  out  of  John's  gospel  or 
Paul's  epistles.  Gone  now  is  the  fourfold  exegesis, 
literal,  tropological,  allegorical,  anagogical.  Gone, 
too,  the  arbitrary  methods  which  made  the  contents  of 
Scripture  mere  wax  to  be  shaped  for  the  uses  of  the 
Lutheran  or  Calvinist  creed.  A  critical  historical 
method,  justified  to  students  of  the  most  diverse 
ecclesiastical  affliations,  has  brought  them  to  common 
results,  so  that  the  more  recent  Hterature  of  Bible 
study  is  undenominational.  Similarly  church  history 
is  no  longer  the  naive  uncritical  narrative  of  medieval 
times  or  a  polemic  argumentation  after  the  manner 
of  the  ''Magdeburg  Centuries."  Historical  science 
has  won  the  day.  The  Protestant  scholar  delights 
in  the  church  history  of  the  Abbe  Duchesne  or  the 
Eistoire  des  Dogmes  of  the  Abbe  Tixeront.  The 
work  of  Harnack,  Loofs,  Seeberg  is  assimilated  by 
theological   schools    of    every   name.     Certainly   in 

131 


132  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

these  large  areas  of  the  total  field  the  scientific  spirit 
and  method  have  made  final  conquest,  and  with 
regard  to  the  historical  data  there  is  a  unity  more 
real  than  was  ever  procured  by  an  ecumenical  council. 
We  are  therefore  led  to  inquire  what  progress  has 
been  made  or  is  in  prospect  for  the  establishment  of 
an  accepted  and  fruitful  scientific  process  in  securing 
and  formulating  the  convictions  which  make  the 
matter  of  systematic  theology.  A  unity  of  method 
here  would  promote  the  spiritual  unification  of  the 
Christian  world. 

This  is  obviously  a  more  delicate  and  difficult 
enterprise.  Escape  from  the  constraint  of  institu- 
tional creeds  has  been  found  by  changing  the  meaning 
of  words.  The  terms  are  fixed.  The  new  thought 
has  to  wear  the  old  dress.  Evasions  and  ambiguities 
have  delayed  the  development  of  a  genuine  scientific 
treatment  of  the  convictions  of  faith.  Some  theo- 
logians have  sincerely  and  bravely  essayed  the  task, 
and  the  success  of  the  critical  historical  movement 
has  given  them  a  measure  of  popular  support.  In 
addition,  the  emancipation  of  philosophy  from  eccle- 
siastical control  has  made  possible  a  large  and 
untrammeled  utterance  on  the  subject  of  religious 
faith,  contributive  to  the  development  of  a  scientific 
method  of  approach  without  the  hindrances  of 
accommodated  language.  In  particular  the  scien- 
tific examination  of  religious  experience  by  William 
James  has  given  great  impetus  to  those  whose  hope 
it  is  to  work  out  for  systematic  theology  a  method 


SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  133 

which  by  its  general  acceptance  and  the  production      « 
of  commonly  shared  results  can  renew  the  passionate 
hope  of  an  ultimate  Catholicity. 

The  progress  already  made  can  be  measured  by 
observing  the  older  method  of  Protestant  scholasti- 
cism which  without  paradox  can  be  illustrated  by 
the  work  of  one  who  was  an  odious  radical  in  his  time. 
Joseph  Priestley's  Institutes  of  Natural  and  Revealed 
Religion  (1772-74)  is  typical  enough  of  the  older 
procedure.  The  work  has  three  parts.  Part  I  deals 
with  '^  natural  religion. "  Part  II  proves  that  we  have 
a  supernatural  revelation  in  the  Bible.  Part  III 
gives  a  systematic  statement  of  the  doctrines  of  this 
revelation  as  a  rationalist  mind  understood  them. 
In  Part  I  we  learn  that  the  existence  of  God,  the 
rules  of  morality,  the  life  to  come,  are  truths  fur- 
nished by  reason,  necessities  of  thought,  or  inevitable 
inferences  from  the  world  as  we  observe  it.  A  theo- 
logian like  Priestley  was  comfortably  secure  in  this 
fundamental  proposition  at  a  time  when  even  the 
skeptical  Hume  maintained  that  "the  existence  of  a 
Deity  is  plainly  ascertained  by  reason"  and  that 
"the  order  of  the  universe  proves  an  omnipotent 
mind;  nothing  more  is  requisite  to  give  a  foundation 
to  all  the  articles  of  religion."  By  natural  reason, 
then,  according  to  Priestley,  we  know  a  being  who  is 
"an  intelUgent  designing  cause  of  what  we  see  in  the 
world  around  us  and  a  Being  who  was  himself 
uncaused."  Since  uncaused,  he  is  eternal  and  im- 
mutable.   The  effects  of  his  causation  compel  us 


134  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

to  ascribe  to  him  power,  wisdom,  goodness.  Since 
the  powers  of  nature  are  his  divine  energy,  we  know 
him  to  be  an  omniscient,  omnipresent  providence, 
unseen  and  therefore  immaterial  in  being.  From  his 
goodness  we  deduce  his  holiness,  justice,  mercy, 
truth,  characters  which  we  can,  indeed,  conceive  only 
imperfectly  through  the  medium  of  his  work  in 
nature,  but  comprehend  more  justly  by  the  aid  of 
his  special  revelation.  Our  first  parents  thus  by 
reason  possessed  the  fundamental  religious  knowledge, 
but  thereafter  came  a  corruption  of  reason  and 
conscience  which  made  necessary  an  assisting  revela- 
tion. This  is  in  the  Bible,  evidenced  as  supernatural 
revelation  by  miracles  and  prophecies.  From  the 
biblical  revelation,  then,  is  drawn  the  additional, 
fuller,  clearer  Hght  of  knowledge  concerning  God, 
duty,  and  the  future  life. 

So  far  as  the  method  is  concerned,  it  can  be  traced 
back  to  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  It  was  in 
fact  Paul  who  founded  for  all  Christian  times  this 
dual  appeal  to  reason  and  revelation.  Reason  view- 
ing creation  discerns  the  eternal  power  and  god- 
head (Rom.  1:20).  The  moral  law  is  a  natural 
law  (Rom.  2:14).  But  there  is  revelation  in  the 
law  given- by  Moses  and  that  direct  personal  revela- 
tion afforded  to  each  believer  by  his  union  with  the 
risen  Lord,  a  revelation  which  in  Paul's  case  contains 
a  dynamic  power  for  the  will  and  the  emotions  of 
the  heart,  while  our  sturdy,  self-reliant,  eighteenth- 
century    rationalist    needed    only    a    revelation    of 


SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  135 

information  to  the  understanding.  Scholastic  orth- 
odoxy and  rationalists  ahke  used  the  method  which 
has  been  outlined,  differing  chiefly  in  the  scope  and 
content  of  doctrine  drawn  from  the  supernatural 
revelation. 

To  the  modern  man,  this  method  has  become 
untenable.  Since  the  time  of  Kant  it  is  not  com- 
monly enough  admitted  that  the  existence  of  the 
supreme  object  of  reHgious  conviction  is  rationally 
demonstrable  from  the  natural  world.  The  claim 
that  primitive  man  began  with  this  clear  rational 
knowledge  and  by  a  fall  or  degeneration  suffered 
corruption  and  confusion  of  insight  and  conscience 
is  belied  by  our  modern  knowledge  of  the  slow  rise 
of  man  from  low  undeveloped  unspiritual  beginnings. 
The  critical  historical  examination  of  the  Bible  has 
invalidated  the  older  way  of  conceiving  revelation. 
Altogether,  the  former  method  for  securing  and 
formulating  religious  convictions  has  been  made 
impossible. 

For  an  effective  new  start,  the  world  is  indebted 
to  Schleiermacher.  In  place  of  a  dogmatic  discussion 
of  the  objects  of  faith,  a  doctrina  de  deo  et  rebus  divinis 
obtained  by  reason  and  scriptural  revelation,  he  made 
faith  itself,  the  religious  apprehension,  the  object 
of  study.  This  is  a  revolutionary  change  of  method. 
Instead  of  beginning  with  the  existence  of  God  as 
proved  by  natural  theology,  given  by  the  necessita- 
tions  of  logical  thought,  the  new  school  began  with 
something  which  all  men  may  be  expected  to  admit, 


136  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

the  fact  of  religious  feeling,  the  fact  of  that  attitude 
or  functioning  of  the  human  spirit  which  we  distin- 
guish from  other  functionings  by  the  name  religious. 
If  a  logically  derived  and  logically  defended  con- 
ception of  God  as  the  one  omnipotent  and  all- 
intelligent  cause  of  the  universe  is  the  defining  fact  of 
religion,  the  term  religion  could  hardly  be  extended 
to  the  awe  and  reverence  and  worship  seen  in  primitive 
peoples  or  to  the  original  form  of  Buddhism.  If  on 
the  other  hand  we  are  considering  man's  thrill  of  awe 
and  humility  in  the  presence  of  any  superhiunan 
might  felt  to  be  sacred  or  holy,  we  deal  with  a  phe- 
nomenon universal  and  essential  in  human  life, 
something  indisputable  as  fact.  But  the  advance 
made  by  Schleiermacher  can  be  best  appreciated  by 
observing  the  situation  left  by  Kant.  In  his  three 
Critiques  Kant  had  elucidated  three  different  types 
of  apprehension.  In  the  first  he  had  studied  the 
logical  theoretic  apprehension  of  science.  Given  the 
raw  material  of  the  data  of  sensation,  the  logical 
understanding  weaves  it  into  that  network  of  relations 
which  make  the  world  as  scientifically  known.  Our 
rules  of  logical  construction  are  restricted  in  their 
application.  They  apply  only  to  the  data  perceived 
in  forms  of  space  and  time,  to  a  phenomenal  world. 
The  transcendent  divine  cause  of  a  universe  is  there- 
fore not  found  by  scientific  knowing.  Exit  the  old 
rationalism.  In  the  second  Critique,  Kant  dis- 
tinguishes another  functioning  of  the  human  spirit — 
the  ethical.     This  is  specifically  different  from  theo- 


SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  137 

re  tic  reason.  In  this  the  human  spirit  as  will — 
the  reason  we  live  by  rather  than  the  reason  that 
merely  thinks  and  knows — penetrates  beyond  phe- 
nomena to  the  absolute  discerned  in  the  form  of 
universal,  necessary  moral  law.  We  have  thus  a 
clear  distinction  between  two  original,  ultimate, 
irreducible  activities  of  self,  the  cognitive  or  scientific, 
and  the  ethical  consciousness.  In  the  third  Critique, 
the  Critique  of  Judgment,  Kant  considered  still  a 
third  type  of  apprehension,  a  third  activity  of  con- 
sciousness, the  aesthetic.  This  again  is  independent, 
not  to  be  resolved  into  either  of  the  others.  Kant 
thus  analyzed  human  apprehension  into  three  distinct, 
independently  valid  types:  the  cognitive,  the  ethical, 
the  aesthetic.  How  then  does  he  deal  with  rehgion  ? 
He  resolves  it  into  the  ethical  functioning.  The  ideas 
of  church  doctrine  are  symbols  of  the  struggling 
experiences  of  the  moral  will  that  finds  itself  on 
the  verge  of  two  kinds  of  reality,  the  order  of  the 
causal  nexus  of  the  phenomenal  world  and  the  order 
of  ultimate  and  sovereign  worth.  It  is  just  here 
that  Schleiermacher  takes  a  significant  step.  He 
differentiates  reHgious  experience  as  a  fourth  valid 
functioning  of  the  human  spirit.  It  is  not,  as  the 
rationahst  meant,  an  act  of  metaphysical  thinking 
and  a  proper  moral  consistency  with  the  content  of 
the  thought. 

It  is  not  to  be  reduced,  as  Kant  would  have  it, 
to  the  ethical  attitude  of  the  will.  It  is  a  fourth, 
ultimate,  irreducible,  original,  spontaneous  functioning 


138  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

of  the  human  spirit.  Furthermore,  just  as  the 
ethical  consciousness  finds  the  absolute  which  is 
moral  law,  just  as  the  aesthetic  consciousness  glimpses 
a  complete  and  perfect  unity  shimmering  through  the 
broken  and  multitudinous  things  of  nature,  so  the 
rehgious  consciousness,  and  that  alone,  really  finds 
God.  The  object  found  is  God  because  it  is  the 
religious  consciousness  that  finds  and  possesses  the 
object.  The  case  is  not  that  of  first  procuring  by 
cognitive  reason  an  idea  of  an  omnipotent  intelligent 
cause  of  nature  and  then  proceeding  to  invest  the 
idea  with  emotional  interest.  Our  reason  may  pre- 
suppose or  require  such  an  idea,  but  God  is  given, 
is  found,  is  met  and  possessed  by  the  religious 
consciousness.  It  is  that  Glauben  or  consciousness 
which  Schleiermacher  makes  the  object  of  study  as 
a  systematic  theologian  in  order  to  elicit  from  its 
contents  convictions  concerning  God  and  the  world 
and  the  redemption  of  man. 

Unquestionably  the  new  method  is  illuminating 
and  revivifying.  Rationalism  whether  orthodox  or 
heterodox  conceived  religion  as  idea  for  the  under- 
standing with  logical  results  in  conduct.  The 
eighteenth-century  rationalism  had  banished  all  the 
mysteries.  It  had  contempt  for  ''enthusiasm" — for 
the  illusion  of  an  immediate  personal  communion 
with  the  present  divine,  for  that  which  history 
reveals  as  the  elementary  beginning  and  the  ulti- 
mate quest  of  religious  movements.  Schleiermacher 
restored    the    religious   phenomenon    to    its    rights, 


SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  139 

restoring  grace,  revelation,  communion  to  the  present 
experience. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  halt  with  Schleiermacher's 
particular  exposition  of  the  rehgious  consciousness 
and  its  implications.  Since  the  days  of  the  Reden 
and  the  Glauhenslehre,  we  have  obtained  a  vast 
body  of  knowledge  concerning  rehgious  experiences, 
rehgious  practices  and  ideas  from  the  world-wide 
and  age-long  survey  of  comparative  religion  or,  as  it 
is  now  more  commonly  called,  the  general  history  of 
religion,  and  we  now  view  Christianity  itself  in  this 
general  setting,  however  exalted  may  be  its  com- 
parative place.  We  have  in  fact  returned  to  the 
true  and  generous  view  of  Clement's  school  in  Alex- 
andria of  the  second  century,  beheving  that  the 
heavenly  light  shines  on  every  creature  that  comes 
into  the  world,  however  confused  and  erroneous  are 
the  accounts  given  of  that  light,  beheving  that  the 
grace  of  God  is  indeed  universal  and  that  the  religious 
experiences  of  all  human  beings  represent  a  contact 
of  soul  with  him  whom  we  are  privileged  to  dis- 
cern as  the  Universal  Father,  however  clouded  and 
irrational  and  unwholesome  have  been  the  images 
projected  by  the  devout  imagination  for  the  power 
that  was  found  in  experience.  Inevitably  the  scien- 
tific method  of  the  modern  systematic  theologian 
must  be  in  some  sense  a  religions geschichtliche 
Methode.  Not  that  however  in  any  merely  exter- 
nal historical  fashion.  The  historical  survey  has 
been  deepened  by  a  more  refined  and  penetrating 


I40  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

psychology.  A  religious  psychology  yields  a  more 
accurate  and  scientific  statement  of  the  human 
religious  consciousness  than  Schleiermacher  could 
give.  This  union  of  a  complete  historical  study  and 
psychological  method  marks  the  arrival  in  the  field 
of  systematic  theology  of  the  scientific  spirit  and 
method  which  is  the  most  recent  achievement  in 
theology. 

Certain  changes  of  procedure  are  obvious.  As 
Soderblom  {Natiirliche  Theologie  und  die  allgemeine 
Religions geschichte)  has  so  clearly  indicated,  we 
have  put  the  general  history  of  religions  in  the 
fundamental  place  once  occupied  by  what  was  called 
natural  theology.  Our  evolutionary  view  compels 
us  moreover  to  affirm  the  rise  of  man  where  once  the 
fall  of  man  was  proclaimed,  and  we  are  brought 
frankly  to  the  view  that  the  Christian  religious 
experience  is  a  historically  educated  form  of  the 
general  human  religious  consciousness.  We  no  longer 
view  the  Bible  as  a  miraculous  interjection  and  ex- 
pansion of  ideas  once  known  to  natural  reason  but 
afterward  obscured  and  perverted  by  man's  fall. 
Nevertheless,  we  use  it,  no  less  eagerly  and  devoutly, 
as  a  wonderful  record  of  that  supremely  privileged 
path  of  development  by  which  the  general  human 
awe  of  the  adorable  Holy  Power  became  the  clear 
and  purified  recognition  of  the  power  that  is  holy 
through  righteousness  (Isa.  5:16)  and  finally  as 
holy  through  that  righteousness  which  is  equal,  im- 
partial, redemptive  Love.    Jesus  proclaims  that  such 


SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  141 

authoritative,  sovereign,  righteous  Love  purposes 
for  his  children  the  realm  of  life  which  is  the  goal  and 
the  loadstone  of  the  Christian  soul,  making  Christian- 
ity, when  it  is  a  real  experience,  a  passion  of  missionary 
endeavor  for  the  spiritual  unification  of  all  man- 
kind in  a  brotherhood  of  life  wherein  the  spirit  that 
was  in  Jesus  shall  be  regnant  in  all.  In  place  of 
using  the  Bible  as  a  codex  of  revealed  information, 
we  use  the  Bible  and  Christian  history  for  the  deter- 
mination of  that  dynamic  essence  of  spiritual  energy 
which  we  inherit  through  the  forms  of  our  historical 
religious  inheritance — inheriting  it  and  re-experiencing 
it — and  which  bears  us  on  to  the  church  which 
shall  be  at  last  the  Holy  Catholic  Church.  For 
natural  theology  we  substitute  comparative  religion. 
For  man's  fall,  we  substitute  the  rise  of  man.  For 
the  supernatural  canon,  we  substitute  the  dynamic 
substance  of  the  Hebrew-Christian  evolution.  In  all 
these  substitutions  we  are  studying  a  rehgious  con- 
sciousness that  finds  God,  a  record  of  grace  and 
revelation. 

But  we  have  not  adequately  expressed  the  debt 
of  modern  systematic  theology  to  Schleiermacher. 
He  was  attempting  a  systematic  statement  and 
co-ordination  of  the  convictions  belonging  by  time's 
last  result  of  historical  development  to  his  own 
circle,  the  Evangelical  Church  of  Prussia.  He  must 
refuse  to  hold  these  convictions  as  mere  deductions 
from  some  contemporary  speculative  philosophy — 
a  hazard  of  thinking.     They  must  be  convictions 


142  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

held  on  the  basis  of  a  religious  experience  which  was 
the  final  matured  form  of  the  human  religious  con- 
sciousness evoked  and  educated  by  the  pure  and 
supremely  kindling  consciousness  of  God  possessed 
by  Jesus.  The  systematic  theologian  was  not  there- 
fore pursuing  a  speculative  venture  of  metaphysi- 
cal thought.  He  was  studying  religious  experience 
and  he  ought  to  have  a  genuinely  scientific  method, 
as  clearly  scientific  as  the  method  of  the  natural 
scientist  who  deals  with  those  very  different  experi- 
ences known  as  physical,  chemical,  biological  facts. 
The  scientist  does  not  deduce  these  facts  or  the 
meaning  of  them  from  metaphysical  premises.  He 
attempts  an  accurate  determination  of  them  by 
inspection,  and  any  theory  or  doctrine  or  belief  which 
he  arrives  at  is  one  implicated  in  the  experience  of 
these  facts.  It  was  just  such  a  positive  scientific 
method  that  Schleiermacher  sought  for  the  production 
of  a  systematic  theology,  one  strictly  analogous  to 
that  of  the  laboratory  scientist  but  proper  to  the 
specifically  different  kind  of  experience  vouchsafed 
to  the  religious  consciousness.  The  doctrines  thus 
obtained  would  be  either  descriptions  of  that  experi- 
ence, propositions,  as  we  now  say,  of  religious  psy- 
chology, or  convictions  about  God  and  his  relation 
to  the  world  which  are  found  involved  and  implicit 
in  the  religious  consciousness,  relative  to  it  as 
the  physicist's  assertions  about  the  world  are  rela- 
tive to  the  data  of  his  field  of  observation.  This 
was  Schleiermacher 's  intention  and  ideal.     Doubtless 


SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  143 

the  performance  did  not  equal  the  intention.  His 
description  of  the  reHgious  consciousness  was  in  fact 
determined  not  so  much  by  psychological  observation 
as  by  his  own  metaphysical  presupposition.  One  may 
say  votum  probo,  opus  non  proho;  nevertheless  the 
systematic  theology  of  today  is  a  fresh  effort  of  the 
kind  which  was  his  ideal. 

Following  Schleiermacher  came  a  transitional 
period  in  which  the  method  used  was  an  unstable 
union  of  empirical  observation  and  philosophical 
deduction.  Then  came  Ritschl,  who  once  more 
made  the  question  of  method  all  important.  Ritschl 
would  eliminate  any  reliance  on  metaphysics — mean- 
ing essentially  to  repudiate  the  old  basis  of  natural 
theology.  He  therefore  resorts  to  the  alternative 
basis  of  revelation  and  in  so  doing  is  at  least  super- 
ficially in  conflict  with  Schleiermacher,  since  he  seems 
to  draw  only  from  a  past  historical  revelation  given 
first  to  Jesus  and  through  Jesus  impressed  upon  the 
earliest  apostles.  The  apparent  gain  was  that  the 
data  used  were  objectively  given  instead  of  being 
capriciously  selected  from  individual  experience, 
but  the  difficulty  was  in  showing  how  the  present-day 
believer  appropriates  the  truth  thus  historically 
given.  Apart  from  this  Ritschl  advanced  matters 
by  his  analysis  of  the  data  of  the  historical  revelation 
to  a  central  essential  idea,  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God  correlate  to.  the  fatherhood  of  God.  To 
make  this  the  central  organizing  idea  of  dogmatics 
was  to  shift  the  center  of  gravity  from  Paulinism 


144  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

to  the  synoptic  preaching  of  Jesus.  Something  of 
great  importance  survives  thereby  even  with  the 
passing  of  Ritschlianism.  RitschHanism  had  to 
pass.  The  rapid  development  of  interest  in  com- 
parative religion,  due  in  part  to  the  international 
influence  of  the  Hibbert  Lectures,  forbade  this 
isolation  of  the  apostolic  revelation  from  the  rest  of 
history.  The  religions geschichtliche  interest  latent  in 
Schleiermacher's  process  began  to  come  powerfully 
to  its  own.  At  the  same  time  the  remarkable  under- 
taking of  William  James  in  his  Varieties  of  Religious 
Experience,  though  devoid  of  the  historical  element, 
acted  powerfully  to  revive  Schleiermacher's  positive 
scientific  method.  The  present  situation  then  is  one 
in  which  the  theologian  appeals  to  the  data  of  religious 
history  in  general  with  supreme  reliance  on  the 
Hebrew- Christian  experience  of  God,  deepening  the 
historical  treatment  by  a  psychological  penetration 
to  the  essence  of  such  experiences,  and  meeting  the 
demand  for  truth  in  the  convictions  thus  exhibited 
by  a  critical  theory  of  religious  knowledge.  It  is  this 
last  phase  of  the  process  which  is  of  peculiar  present 
urgency  and  if  one  may  hazard  an  estimate,  the 
theory  in  prospect  will  be  not  unlike  the  so-called 
^'mystical  empiricism"  expounded  in  Lossky's  Intui- 
tive Bases  of  Knowledge.  The  effort  to  parallel 
Kant's  method  and  exhibit  a  religious  a  priori  in 
order  to  anchor  experience  in  a  universally  valid 
rational  element  has  not  arrived  at  any  clear  result  or 
general  acceptance.     Some  theory  of  knowledge  is 


SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  145 

needed  to  protect  faith  against  fear  of  illusion  when 
men  are  persuaded  that  faith  or  religious  apprehension 
is  not  the  logical  cognitive  activity  of  the  intellect 
which  lays  such  exclusive  claims  to  dictatorship 
but  an  apprehension  of  another  type,  analogous  to 
our  non-logical  aesthetic  apprehension  though  dis- 
tinguishable from  it.  The  act  of  religious  faith  is 
conscious  of  laying  hold  of  reality,  of  truth.  It  is 
not  mere  blind  feeling.  As  Schleiermacher  said  in 
the  Reden,  it  is  Anschauung  und  Gejiihl,  and  the 
fault  of  his  Glauhenslehre  lies  in  the  suppression  of  the 
element  of  Anschauung.  The  mere  feeling  of  passivity 
to  absolute  causality  could  not,  in  fact,  explain 
religion  as  we  actually  know  it.  There  must  be  a 
recognition  of  the  absolute  worthfulness  of  feeling's 
object  in  order  to  justify  all  the  emotional  values  of 
Schleiermacher 's  own  religion.  There  is  a  *' know- 
ing" in  faith,  but  the  knowing  is  immediate,  an 
intuition,  not  inferential  thinking.  When  Tuckwell 
{Religion  and  Reality)  insists  so  strongly  that  a 
judgment  is  not  a  comparison  of  ideas  but  a  reference 
to  a  reahty  given;  when  Wobbermin  (Die  Religions- 
psychologische  Methode  in  Religionswissenschaft  und 
Theologie)  urges  so  strongly  that  Ofenharung  is  the 
very  criterion  of  religious  consciousness,  the  consti- 
tutive thing  in  it;  when  James  characterizes  reUgious 
experience  as  ''a  conviction,  not  merely  intellec- 
tual, but  as  it  were  sensible,  of  the  existence  of  an 
Ideal  Power,"  ''a  sense  of  Presence  of  a  higher  and 
friendly  Power, "  we  may  surely  see  the  tendency  to 


146  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

understand  religious  knowing  after  the  manner  of  a 
higher  reaHsm  like  Lossky's.  This  is  a  view  that, 
refusing  to  limit  experience  to  sense  perception, 
argues  that  in  every  case — sense  perception  or  other — 
the  object  is  contained  in  the  knowing  as  immedi- 
ately as  when  the  self  knows  its  own  conscious  states. 
We  may  at  least  hopefully  declare  that  a  theory  of 
religious  knowledge  necessitated  by  the  method  of 
religious  psychology  is  announcing  itself.  The  psy- 
chology and  the  theory  of  this  knowing  must  alike 
interpret  the  fact  that  religion's  form  of  expression 
is  symbol  and  not  logical  concept.  When  it  does 
that  some  of  our  conflicts  with  science  are  over. 
With  symbol,  if  it  be  inevitable  and  really  congruent 
even  though  it  do  not  suffice  fully  to  express  the 
object  found  in  this  sacred  experience,  religion  is 
content.  Who  can  fathom  the  deep  things  of  God? 
Exeunt  in  mysteria  can  be  said  without  alarm  of  all 
our  most  passionately  held  convictions  about  God 
and  divine  things  as  truly  as  for  the  highest  and 
purest  convictions  about  human  souls  when  love 
reveals  them  to  us. 

And  dearer  than  all  else  besides, 

The  tender  mystery 
That  like  a  veil  of  shadow  hides 

The  hght  I  may  not  see. 

The  mystery  belonging  to  the  moment  of  awe  and 
adoration  in  the  unseen  presence  hovers  too  over 
the  forms  of  doctrine  elicited  from  that  solemn  privi- 
lege of  communion. 


SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  147 

It  is  profitable  to  give  something  like  concrete 
illustration  to  this  formal  account  of  method  and 
procedure.  In  the  first  place  let  us  make  sure  of  the 
discrimination  between  a  logical  scientific  explanatory 
treatment  of  reality  and  other  dealings  with  it  which 
must  wear  other  names  but  are  equally  inevitable 
and  equally  valid.  Consider  the  lilies,  said  Jesus. 
We  may  consider  the  Hlies  in  more  than  one  way. 
A  man  may  ask  to  what  family  of  plants  the  lily 
belongs.  He  may  enumerate  and  describe  the  various 
elements  of  the  plant  in  its  root  and  stem  and  blossom. 
He  may  explain  the  functioning  of  these  parts  in  the 
life  of  the  organism  of  the  plant.  He  may  study  the 
biochemical  processes  involved  in  its  life.  He  may 
account  for  the  origin  of  various  types  and  species 
and  show  the  Knkages  to  larger  inclusive  groups  of 
plant  life.  By  all  this  classifying  and  relating  he  is 
explaining  the  lily.  He  satisfies  our  logical  curiosity. 
That  is  one  way,  the  botanist's  way,  the  scientific 
way  of  considering  the  lily,  for  purposes  of  explanation. 
We  may  do  all  this  without  remembering  that  Solomon 
in  all  his  splendor  was  not  arrayed  in  so  much  beauty 
as  the  lily.  But  there  is  another  person  than  the 
scientist  who  may  deal  with  the  lily,  or  the  scientist 
himself  may  forget  his  botanical  interest  and  respond 
to  the  lily  with  a  simple  joy  in  its  exquisite  beauty. 
In  that  attitude  he  ignores  class  relations  and  bio- 
chemical laws  and  all  other  explanations.  There  is 
nothing  to  be  explained.  He  is  satisfied.  He  has 
joy.     He  will  utter  this  experience  in  exclamations 


148  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

or  poetic  words  or  song  or  painted  representations. 
The  scientist's  consideration,  the  artist's  considera- 
tion, these  are  independent  one  of  the  other.  Neither 
can  be  reduced  to  the  other.  One  is  logical,  theoretic; 
the  other  is  aesthetic.  The  lily  means  both  these 
things.  Both  accounts  of  it  are  justified.  The 
judgments  involved  are  not  of  the  same  kind.  In 
the  one  case  we  can  distribute  our  attitude,  our 
dealing  with  the  object  into  various  steps:  such  and 
such  characteristics  belong  to  this  object;  these 
characteristics  define  a  genus  of  things;  therefore, 
this  object  belongs  in  that  genus.  In  the  other  case 
we  take  but  one  step:  this  flower  is  beautiful.  As 
the  Kantian  would  say,  it  is  subsumed  directly  and 
immediately  under  an  ''idea  of  the  reason."  It  is  a 
non-logical  or  aesthetic  judgment.  It  is  intuitive. 
But  let  us  desert  the  lily  and  choose  for  our  reality 
a  man.  Him  too  we  may  consider  scientifically, 
applying  anatomy,  physiology,  chemistry,  anthro- 
pology, psychology,  and  various  other  explanatory 
processes,  to  pluck  out  the  heart  of  his  mystery.  We 
may  also  ignore  all  these  interests  completely  and 
simply  yield  to  the  heightened  emotional  thrill 
roused  by  his  beauty.  Lovers  and  friends  do  not 
feel  in  terms  of  biochemistry  or  ethnology.  But  the 
man  as  a  part  of  given  reality  may  have  still  another 
meaning  to  me.  He  may  excite  a  very  different 
response.  He  represents  a  possibiHty  of  action.  He 
provokes  impulses  of  conduct.  I  may  deal  with  him 
in  one  way  or  another,  but  I  am  aware  that  one  way 


SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  149 

is  right,  the  other  wrong.  Neither  the  scientific 
account  of  the  man  or  the  beauty  or  ugHness  of  the 
man  are  involved  in  this  ethical  response.  It  is 
independent.  I  am  facing  another  worthfulness  in 
the  sum  of  experience.  The  word  for  it  is  not ''  true  " 
or  ''beautiful,"  but  ''good"  or  "right."  Here  again 
is  an  ultimate  irreducible  attitude  of  the  human  self 
to  reality. 

It  took  a  long    time  for  humanity  to  become 
scientific  or  artistic   or  even  moral,  but  there  was 
another    primal     susceptibility    which    was    easily 
evoked  in  the  depth  of  time.     Roaming  in  a  scene 
half-realized,  man  found  some   striking    and    over- 
awing object  or  situation  that  evoked  another  height- 
ened emotional  thrill — not  mere  emotion  however. 
There   was   perception,   there    was   the   impulse   to 
action,  but  there  was   especially  the  solemnity  of 
awed  emotion.     The    storm,  the  burning  bush,  the 
forest  stillness,  the  majesty  of  mountains,  the  grotto's 
gloom,  the  teeming  prodigality  of  Hfe  and  power  in 
various  beings — all  these  were  occasions  for  glimpsing 
a  vast  and  subduing  wonderful  might  that  drew  and 
claimed    and   obHgated    his    shrinking    humility   of 
consciousness.     Man  had  a  word  for  what  he  thus 
discerned  through  the  provocations  of  things  strange 
and  great.     The  word  was  "holy."     The  very  scene 
where  he  had  experienced  this  humbling  and  exalting 
attraction  was  ever  after   "holy"  ground  and  was 
made  a  shrine  for  the  revival  of  the  great  experience. 
But  whatever   object    or   situation   evoked   it,    the 


I50  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

experience  was  not  a  discovery  of  logical  relations, 
or  of  beauty,  or  of  mere  duty.  It  was  the  discovery 
of  the  sacred,  the  holy,  the  divine.  That  man,  says 
Soderblom,  is  rehgious  to  whom  something  is  holy. 

The  story  of  religion  is  the  story  of  the  education 
of  this  primal  religious  experience  which  did  not  wait 
for  science  or  aesthetics  or  ethics.  It  was  not  a  case 
of  a  man  saying  argumentatively:  There  is  a  God. 
Something  had  occasioned  and  evoked  a  sense  of  a 
presence  to  which  he  said:  Thou  art  my  God.  It  was 
a  case  of  revelation.  God  was  there  and  the  man 
gave  himself  to  that  presence  with  that  complex  of 
fear  and  loyalty,  of  humility,  and  of  an  exaltation 
through  the  yielding  submission,  which  has  found  its 
own  specific  word  for  the  presence  so  affecting  man. 
The  word  is  holy.     Holy  art  thou.  Lord,  God ! 

The  history  of  rehgion  shows  that  in  this  attitude 
there  was  not  mere  fear,  not  a  sense  of  a  terrifying 
power,  but  a  sense  of  power  exercising  a  not  unwel- 
come claim,  a  sense  of  being  ''tied"  or  obligated,  a 
vague  sense  of  ''ought,"  which  expressed  itself  often 
in  what  to  us  are  senseless  practices,  but  was  to 
culminate  in  the  saint's  rapture  of  self-surrender  with 
a  consciousness  of  elation  and  freedom  in  the  perfect. 
The  greatest  forward  step  taken  in  religious  history 
was  that  which  especially  characterized  Hebrew  men 
of  unusual  rehgious  susceptibility  and  energy  who 
in  a  clash  of  human  relations,  a  strife  between  unjust 
greed  and  brotherhood  loyalty,  penetrated  to  a 
deep  meaning  in  the  rehgious  experience.    Why  this 


SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  151 

dread  of  violation,  this  impulse  to  yield  self  to  the 
holy  power  as  if  therein  were  found  the  law  and 
authority  for  man's  life  ?  What  was  this  constraint, 
this  obligatoriness,  this  sovereignty  ?  These  Hebrew 
prophets  knew  intuitively  that  the  awe-fulness  of 
the  divine  was  its  mandate  of  ethical  righteousness, 
that  its  holiness  was  the  exaction  of  justice.  ''The 
Holy  God  shows  himself  as  holy  through  righteous- 
ness" (Isa.  5:16).  This  was  the  beginning  of 
ethical  monotheism.  It  was  estabHshed  that  the 
authority  of  God  over  man  was  the  universal,  uncon- 
ditional ethical  authority.  With  that  new  insight 
into  the  spell  of  religion,  man  rose  to  new  levels. 
The  beginning  was  such  a  case  as  Jacob  dreaming  of 
angels  ascending  and  descending  and  wakening  to 
fear:  How  dreadful  is  this  place!  this  is  none  other 
than  the  house  of  God.     And  he  vowed  a  vow: 

If  God  will  be  with  me  and  will  give  me  bread  to  eat  and 
raiment  to  put  on,  then  the  Lord  shall  be  my  God,  and  this 
stone  shall  be  God's  house  [Gen.  28]. 

Such  was  a  beginning.     And  the  end  is  this: 

As  the  hart  panteth  after  the  water  brooks,  so  panteth  my 
soul  after  thee,  0  God!  My  soul  is  athirst  for  God,  for  the 
living  God!  When  shall  I  come  and  appear  before  God? 
[Ps.  42]. 

O  God,  thou  art  my  God;  early  will  I  seek  thee:  my  soul 
thirsteth  for  thee,  my  flesh  longeth  for  thee  in  a  dry  and 
thirsty  land,  where  no  water  is.  To  see  thy  power  and  thy 
glory,  so  as  I  have  seen  thee  in  the  sanctuary.  Because  thy 
loving  kindness  is  better  than  Hfe,  my  Hps  shall  praise  thee. 
Thus  will  I  bless  thee  while  I  live  [Ps.  63]. 


152  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

The  systematic  theologian  deals  with  this  religious 
consciousness  in  its  highest  developed  state,  educated 
by  the  intuitions  of  ethical  prophets,  exalted  and 
refined  by  the  communions  of  Jesus,  enabled  indeed 
to  discern  the  holy  divine  presence  through  the 
personaHty  of  Jesus  himself,  through  him  discerning 
the  kind  of  being  which  can  have  the  absolute  sanctity 
and  divinity,  through  him  seeing  the  Father.  The 
theologian  must  indeed  be  guided  by  his  own  religious 
sensibiHty,  but  he  escapes  any  individual  caprice  in 
defining  the  experience  which  he  studies  and  eluci- 
dates by  surveying  the  whole  development  of  Chris- 
tian consciousness,  by  seeking  truth,  as  Dr.  Oliver 
Stearns  expressed  it,  ''in  the  light  of  the  Holy  Catholic 
Church,  purifying  his  judgment  by  searching  the 
thought  and  experience  of  saints,  ancient  and  mod- 
ern."  Let  us  then  outline  what  knowledge  lurks 
for  the  student  in  the  religious  consciousness  so 
determined. 

''My  soul  is  athirst  for  thee,  O  God.  Thus  will 
I  bless  thee  while  I  live."  This  is  the  utterance  of 
the  quickened  religious  consciousness.  It  is  not  an 
effort  to  explain  anything  whatever.  It  is  man 
seeking,  man  finding,  man  meeting,  man  possessing 
God  in  the  intuitive  religious  consciousness.  It  is 
not  spoken  to  a  material  object.  It  is  spoken  to  an 
imageless  presence.  And  it  is  tense  with  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  supernal  worthfulness  of  that 
presence.  The  words  are  a  cry  to  utter  an  experience, 
not  to  give  a  definition  of  the  reality  experienced. 


SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  153 

The  words  embody  the  feehng  of  being  affected  in  a 
particular  and  wonderful  manner  by  the  unimaged 
presence.  That  is  the  positive  of  this  consciousness. 
You  and  I  contemplating  it  can  say  various  things 
about  it.  We  say  it  is  the  experience  of  a  spiritual 
reality.  That  is  more  negative.  It  says  that  this 
positive  sense  of  a  supremely  worthful  imseen  is  not 
the  sense  of  a  material  object.  This  is  a  negative  and 
inadequate  way  of  expressing  the  peculiar  constraint 
or  authoritativeness  of  worth  which  the  worshiper 
has  experienced.  But  it  helps:  God  is  spirit.  We  see 
that  this  worshiper  was  aware  of  an  authoritativeness 
unconditionally  valid  and  we  say  that  he  experi- 
enced an  absolute.  This  is  not  the  positive  experi- 
ence which  had  no  concept.  It  is  our  contrast  of  his 
experience  with  the  experience  of  less  exalted  long- 
ings and  impulses.  It  has  a  negative  in  it:  not  an 
object  of  relative  worth,  but  "absolute."  But  it 
serves  to  use  this  concept  negatively  obtained:  God 
is  spiritual  and  absolute  in  worth.  And  we  go  on  at 
once  to  say:  not  then  an  experience  of  things  natural 
but  of  a  being  more  than  natural.  The  direct  ex- 
perience did  not  indulge  in  the  act  of  contrasting. 
We  are  doing  it — as  we  must.  God  is  in  this  sense 
^^ supernatural.''^  The  concept  and  the  immediate 
experience  are  not  the  same  thing.  The  concept  is 
no  positive  expression  of  the  experience.  We  note, 
too,  that  the  worshiper  is  affected  by  a  reality  met 
in  intuitive  experience.  It  is  given — it  is  other  than 
he,  other  than  the  concrete  scene  about  him.    It  is 


154  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

transcendent.  But  equally  it  is  clear  that  the  soul 
possesses  it.  It  is  immanent  in  his  experience.  He 
is  surrendering,  yielding,  merging  self  into  another, 
a  spiritual,  absolute,  overarching,  and  yet  kindred 
being — athirst  for  it,  rejoicing  in  it,  praising  and 
blessing  it.  We  who  contemplate  him  can  only  say 
that  for  him  the  worthful  supernal  being  is  personal 
to  him.  The  worshiper  seems  to  share  in  that 
being  and  indeed  when  he  himself  tries  to  utter  this 
he  cries:  ''Thou  in  me  and  I  in  thee!"  Such  inter- 
penetration  we  can  parallel  only  in  the  contents  of 
our  consciousness.  In  the  world  of  outer  perception 
there  are  juxtapositions,  not  interpenetrations.  The 
kindred  case  for  the  worshiper's  felt  relation  to  his 
God  is  the  relation  of  elements  of  my  consciousness 
to  myself.  It  is  true,  therefore,  that  this  worship  and 
communion  find  a  worthful  transcendent  and  yet 
immanent  being  in  a  relation  that  must  use  the 
terms  of  personality. 

I  am  only  illustrating  hastily  and  inadequately 
that,  using  a  truer  determination  of  the  religious  con- 
sciousness than  Schleiermacher  used,  but  pursuing 
much  the  same  method,  we  obtain  as  inevitable  neces- 
sary elucidations  of  the  religious  consciousness  itself 
a  series  of  formulated  convictions — truths  about  God 
as  the  religious  consciousness  apprehends  him.  We 
have  not  got  these  propositions  by  borrowing  from  the 
logical  explanatory  dealing  with  reality  but  from 
the  religious  experience  itself.  We  simply  explicate 
the  contents  of  that  experience  and  we  are  enabled 


SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  155 

to  say  that  God  experimentally  known  is  one  spiritual, 
absolute,  supermundane,  transcendent,  immanent 
being.  We  say  that  he  is  known  as  such  by  the 
knowing  that  is  not  scientific  inference  from  the 
world,  but  is  the  direct  intuitive  religious  knowing. 
These  are  great  primary  convictions  about  God 
which  are  thus  won,  and  there  are  others  that  are 
developed  as  the  presuppositions  of  such  experiential 
knowing.  For  example,  the  conviction  that  the 
earth  is  the  Lord's,  that  God  wills  the  world.  Prob- 
ably enough,  this  cannot  be  got  as  the  content  of  a 
simple,  unanalyzed  intuition,  as  a  direct  sense  of 
world-dependence  on  God.  But  legitimately  we  can 
reflectively  reason  to  the  presuppositions  of  the 
experience  and  find  there  the  necessity  of  the  affirma- 
tion that  the  world  is  God's  world  and  serves  his 
purpose.  All  the  primary  knowledge  is  by  a  single 
step,  for  all  is  but  explication  of  "Holy  art  thou.'' 
The  relation  of  the  Holy  One  to  the  universe  requires 
another  step.  It  is  inferential  knowledge.  We  are 
therefore  led  to  seek  assistance  from  any  justified 
rational  construction  of  the  world  which  exhibits  it  as 
held  in  an  ethical  teleological  system.  This  may 
illustrate  the  remaining  question  of  the  relation  of 
systematic  theology  to  metaphysics.  Our  dogmatics 
has  explicated  the  meanings  of  the  Christian  religious 
consciousness,  and  it  presents  them  not  as  mere 
statistics  of  behef  but  as  convictions  of  truth.  It 
is  therefore  concerned  with  the  question  of  the 
validity   of  these   faiths.      That   is   a  part  of  the 


156  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

enterprise.  But  now  to  proceed  to  prove  the  validity 
of  these  faiths  from  the  results  of  theoretic  reason 
would  be  a  desertion  of  the  principle  fundamental 
to  the  method  which  systematic  theology  has  now 
adopted.  That  principle  is,  trust  in  the  normality 
and  independence  of  the  religious  consciousness. 
The  proper  apologetic,  therefore,  is  first  of  all  to 
disclose  the  grounds  of  vaHdity  inherent  in  the 
religious  consciousness  itself.  When  moreover  we 
find  the  religious  consciousness  crying  out,  ''Whither 
shall  I  flee  from  thy  presence?"  or  affirming,  "The 
earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  fulness  thereof,"  we  may 
rest  content  with  the  inevitability  of  this  intuition, 
but  we  may  also  better  invite  the  co-operation  of 
theoretic  reason,  as  ally  not  as  dictator.  When  we 
have  fully  explicated  the  Christian  complex  of  faith, 
the  Christian  world- view,  we  cannot  refrain  from 
asking  whether  it  furnishes  a  satisfactory  answer 
to  the  general  question:  Why  a  world  at  all?  We 
shall  ask  whether  the  results  of  theoretic  explanatory 
reason  stifle  our  Christian  faith  or  give  it  possibility 
of  breath.  How  far  this  interest  will  lead  the  expo- 
nent of  faith  into  ultimate  philosophical  discussions 
must  depend  on  the  degree  of  confidence  which  he 
has  in  any  total  philosophical  construction  and 
interpretation  of  the  sum  of  reality  known  by  all 
the  modes  of  human  apprehensions.  If  there  is  a 
system  of  metaphysics  which  commands  unaltering 
universal  assent,  well  and  good!  The  systematic 
theologian  will  show    the  consonancy  of  what  he 


SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  157 

elucidates  for  the  religious  consciousness  with  that 
universally  valid  and  acknowledged  system.  If  there 
is  no  such  system,  he  will  still  gladly  show  that 
there  is  philosophic  support  for  his  content  of  faith, 
only  being  on  his  guard  that  he  does  not  construct 
the  faith  as  a  deduction  from  the  philosophy  and 
thus  constrain  the  plastic  vital  experiences  of  a 
soul  which  has  other  functionings  than  that  of  an 
explanatory  understanding. 

Francis  Albert  Christie 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 


EDUCATION  IN  WORSHIP 

Worship  is  any  technique  by  which  we  stimulate 
those  characteristic  emotions  that  we  recognize  as 
rehgious.  I  am  not  attempting  to  define  rehgion. 
Let  each  one  do  that  for  himself.  But  when  he  has 
made  his  own  definition,  or  without  any  definition  has 
recognized  a  certain  experience  as  religious,  he  knows 
that  there  are  states  of  feeling  which  are  most  char- 
acteristic of  that  experience.  It  is  the  production  of 
those  states  of  feeling  which  is  the  purpose  of  worship. 

In  origin  and  in  theory  worship  is  something  very 
different.  It  is  homage  toward  deity.  Its  signifi- 
cance is  found  in  its  object.  The  subjective  state  of 
worship  is  supposed  to  be  entirely  incidental.  The 
primitive  worship  was  undoubtedly  a  do  ut  des.  The 
great  always  demand  adulation  and  tribute,  pre- 
eminently therefore  the  god  must  desire  to  be  praised 
and  to  be  enriched.  The  worshiper  makes  obeisance, 
presents  sacrifice,  pours  out  his  libation,  expecting 
that  his  god  will  reward  him,  or  at  least  will  refrain 
from  hurting  him. 

The  resultant  feelings  of  expectancy  and  of 
satisfaction  are  testimony  to  him  of  the  value  of 
his  service.  This  is  most  clearly  seen  in  such 
ceremonials  as  the  war  dance,   the  fast,  the  vigil. 

158 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  159 

The  warrior  has  worked  himself  into  a  frenzy  by  his 
wild  dance,  in  which  he  has  simulated  the  actions  of 
battle  and  in  imagination  slain  his  foe.  He  goes  out 
to  the  fight  all  aglow  with  the  excitement  and  attrib- 
utes his  rage  to  the  inspiration  of  the  god  of  battles. 
The  value  of  worship  is  measured  by  the  resultant 
feeling  of  the  worshiper.  Again,  he  fasts  and  afflicts 
himself  in  penitence  or  in  self-abnegation  to  placate 
his  deity  and  when  the  famine  produces  the  charac- 
teristic hght-headedness  with  the  tendency  to  halluci- 
nation and  abnormal  visual  experiences  he  thinks 
himself  the  recipient  of  unusual  spiritual  privilege. 
His  own  subjective  state  is  the  basis  of  his  evaluation 
of  his  worship.  But  the  worship  is  always  thought 
of  as  objectively  significant. 

The  worshiper  is  sure  that  God  wants  what  he 
offers.  He  is  sure  that  definite  results  are  obtained 
by  means  of  worship  which  would  come  in  no  other 
way.  He  regards  the  particular  acts  which  he 
performs  as  significant  in  and  of  themselves.  The 
technique  is  prescribed  by  God  just  as  the  court 
ceremonial  is  prescribed  by  the  king.  So  the 
elements  of  worship  are  always  divinely  ordained. 
The  tabernacle  is  made  according  to  the  pat- 
tern that  was  shown  in  the  Mount.  The  priestly 
prescriptions  come  through  inspired  channels.  But 
the  authentication  of  this  objectivity  is  always  in 
the  subjective  appreciation  of  the  worshiper. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  prophetic  deroga- 
tion of  ceremonial  is  also  subjective.     The  worshiper 


i6o  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

says,  ''This  ceremonial  must  be  from  God  because 
I  feel  the  awesome  presence.  I  know  in  my  own 
experience  that  God  is  in  it. "  The  ethical  Protestant 
says,  ''The  ceremonial  cannot  be  from  God  because 
it  does  not  make  you  behave  as  God  desires."  He 
evaluates  the  worship  in  terms  of  its  ethical  motiva- 
tion, and  he  does  so  because  his  religion  is  ethical. 
The  only  feelings  which  may  be  called  religious  are 
those  which  stimulate  him  to  the  ethical  life.  He 
generally,  therefore,  rejects  the  elaborate  ceremonial 
and  falls  back  on  simpler  exercises  which  help  him  to 
feel  the  Divine  presence  in  the  common  relationships 
of  life.  He  has  only  developed  or  rediscovered  another 
technique  by  which  to  stimulate  those  characteristic 
emotions  which  he  recognizes  as  religious. 

To  our  modern  religion  the  distinction  between 
subjective  and  objective  values  is  unimportant. 
God  who  is  spirit  and  seeketh  those  to  worship  him 
who  worship  in  spirit  and  in  truth  cannot  be  con- 
cerned about  a  particular  etiquette.  Whether  the 
bread  of  the  sacrament  is  leavened  or  unleavened, 
whether  the  water  of  the  sacrament  is  much  or 
little,  whether  the  prayer  is  formal  or  extemporane- 
ous, whether  the  worshiper  kneels  or  sits — none  of 
these  things  can  matter  to  God  except  as  they  matter 
to  us.  Tom  Paine  with  a  fine  sarcasm  suggested  as  an 
amendment  to  the  Act  permitting  Quakers  to  worship 
God  according  to  their  own  conscience  that  it  would  be 
more  fitting  to  enact  that  God  should  be  permitted  to 
accept  the  worship  which  Quakers  should  offer  him. 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  i6i 

The  worthship  is  ultimately  in  ourselves.  It  is 
what  will  make  us  worthy  that  is  important.  It  is 
the  motivation  of  our  lives  in  which  the  God  and 
Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  interested,  not  in 
any  homage  that  is  due  to  himself. 

We  come  then  to  the  question  of  the  place  of 
worship  in  the  motivation  of  life.  It  is  wholly  a 
practical  question.  Can  worship  do  us  any  good? 
In  the  spirit  of  most  utter  reverence  and  of  a  simple 
faith  in  the  God  whom  we  know  through  Jesus  we 
must  evaluate  worship  in  terms  of  its  subjective 
effect  upon  ourselves.  How  can  it  be  so  ordered  as 
to  help  us  to  feel  toward  God  and  toward  men  as  we 
believe  it  is  desirable  for  us  to  feel?  Let  me  here 
state  parenthetically  my  own  conviction  that  worship 
will  not  outHve  the  faith  in  the  object  of  worship. 
However  much  our  psychology  may  teach  us  that 
worship  has  subjective  value  we  should  not  be  able 
to  continue  the  practice  simply  for  such  value. 
Only  if  there  is  a  real  God  with  whom  I  am  united 
in  the  exercise  of  worship  shall  I  be  able  to  carry  on 
the  exercise. 

Believing  in  God  as  fatherly,  as  infinitely  under- 
standing and  sympathetic  with  his  human  children, 
we  cannot,  as  we  have  already  noted,  think  of  him  as 
concerned  with  any  particular  technique  of  worship 
for  his  own  sake.  That  must  be  what  Jesus  meant  by 
worship  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

The  question  of  technique  then  apphes  to  our- 
selves.   What  kind  of   exercises  will  stimulate  the 


i62  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

desirable  emotions?  Thus  we  get  away  from  a 
metaphysical  problem  to  an  educational  problem. 
What  are  the  exercises  of  worship  that  people  need  to 
develop  in  them  the  right  feeling-attitudes  toward 
God  and  toward  men,  and  how  shall  we  train  them 
in  the  practice  of  those  exercises  ? 

Let  us  attempt  an  analysis  of  the  religious  feeling. 
Without  raising  the  question  of  primacy  among  the 
religious  emotions,  certain  it  is  that  a  most  funda- 
mental one  is  respect.  This  is  an  elemental  impulse 
having  its  origin  in  the  animal  order.  Biologically 
its  value  has  been  in  the  acceptance  of  leadership. 
It  is  the  counterpart  of  the  instinct  of  mastery. 
The  development  of  a  devotion  to  the  stronger,  the 
greater,  the  chief,  patriarch,  king,  has  been  of  high 
importance  in  social  evolution.  Naturally  this  atti- 
tude was  carried  over  into  the  relations  with  deity 
and  became  the  awe  and  reverence  which  have  had 
so  large  a  place  in  religion. 

Correlated  with  the  feeling  of  respect  or  reverence 
for  greatness  and  goodness  is  the  feeling  of  humility, 
the  recognition  of  one's  own  inferiority  to  the  object 
of  respect.  One  is  less  than  the  chief,  and  one  is 
infinitely  small  in  the  presence  of  his  God. 

The  question  arises  whether  the  feelings  of  respect 
and  of  humility  are  desirable  in  a  democratic  society. 
Do  they  not  belong  to  the  old  aristocratic  regime? 
Superficially  democracy  answers  the  question  at 
once  in  the  affirmative.  Children  may  be  rude  to 
parents  and  to  teachers,  inasmuch  as  they  will  not 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  163 

be  beaten.  Servants  may  be  impertinent  to  their 
employers,  for  it  is  easy  to  get  another  job.  Youth 
may  jeer  at  age,  for  the  dead  line  is  at  fifty.  The 
people  may  lampoon  their  rulers,  for  have  they  not 
elected  them,  and  can  they  not  turn  them  out  of 
office  ?  The  congregation  may  criticize  the  minister, 
for  have  they  not  ''hired "  him  ?  And  why  should  we 
even  have  respect  for  God,  for  we  are  not  quite  sure 
that  the  philosophers  will  allow  him  to  exist.  As 
for  humihty,  perish  the  thought!  ''AH  men  are  born 
free  and  equal.''  We  bow  to  no  one;  "one  man  is 
as  good  as  another." 

Such  a  democracy  would  produce  a  vulgar  world. 
It  has  no  sanctities,  nothing  higher  than  its  own 
stupid  mediocrity.     It  would  be  profane. 

But  that  is  only  a  sham  democracy.  The  very 
essence  of  real  democracy  is  respect  for  personality, 
mutuahty  of  respect  and  of  humility.  Said  Emerson, 
"Every  man  is  my  master  in  something."  Said 
Jesus,  "He  that  is  greatest  among  you  shall  be  your 
servant."  The  King  stands  bareheaded  beside  the 
casket  of  Nurse  Cavell. 

Democracy  needs  more  reverence,  not  less,  until 
we  shall  have  respect  for  every  goodness  and  great- 
ness, for  every  abihty  and  skill,  for  every  devotion 
and  faithfulness.  And  for  God.  We  shall  not 
tremble  before  him;  we  shall  not  call  ourselves 
worms  of  the  dust.  Perfect  love  casteth  out  fear, 
but  it  never  weakens  reverence.  There  is  a  demo- 
cratic rehgion  which  finds  God  in  the  experiences  of 


i64  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

common  life,  and  not  in  superimposed  authorities. 
But  it  is  not  therefore  less  reverent.  God  is  not 
less  wonderful  because  we  find  him  in  common  life. 
Tennyson  was  humbled  by  the  flower  in  the  crannied 
wall. 

Perhaps  the  decline  in  worship  has  some  con- 
nection with  the  decline  in  reverence.  They  may 
develop  together.  Doubtless  worship  must  be  rein- 
terpreted. Men  have  given  up  prayer  because  they 
did  not  believe  in  trying  to  tease  God  to  interfere 
with  the  order  of  nature.  But  if  prayer  is  meditation 
on  the  spiritual  meaning  of  life  it  may  come  back  with 
more  power  and  may  help  us  to  escape  from  the 
vulgarities  and  profanities  into  a  sense  of  the  sacred- 
ness  of  ourselves  and  of  our  world,  instinct  with  God. 
The  sacraments  have  seemed  futile,  and  sometimes 
even  superstitious,  as  if  some  magic  efficacy  could 
reside  in  them.  Baptism  is  a  subject  for  new  jests. 
But  if  the  sacrament  is  a  symbol  of  the  sanctity  of 
all  life,  if  the  sacred  supper  speaks  of  the  Divine 
presence  in  men's  eating  and  drinking,  then  it  may 
help  us  toward  insight,  and  that  is  the  great  need  of  a 
democracy. 

If  we  can  practice  our  people  in  the  S3mibolisms, 
the  poetry,  the  rich  appreciations  of  a  genuine  wor- 
ship, we  may  get  back  into  life  that  reverence,  the 
loss  of  which  must  make  us  poor  indeed. 

But  religious  feehng  has  ever  been  even  more 
self-depreciatory.  It  has  included  the  sense  of  fail- 
ure.   In  primitive  religion  this  may  be  fear  that 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  165 

the  requirement  of  the  god  has  somehow  not  been 
met,  that  this  arbitrary  and  capricious  deity  has  in 
some  way  been  offended.  In  an  ethical  rehgion  it  is 
the  sense  of  positive  wrongdoing,  or,  more  signifi- 
cantly still,  the  appreciation  of  some  good  that  has 
not  been  performed.  *'We  have  left  undone  those 
things  which  we  ought  to  have  done;  and  we  have 
done  those  things  which  we  ought  not  to  have  done. " 
With  this  is  sorrow.  Again  in  the  less  ethical  religions 
fear  of  punishment,  in  the  more  ethical  religions  pain 
for  the  failure  of  the  best. 

Conviction  of  sin  and  contrition  for  sin  are  not 
as  common  as  they  used  to  be.  There  are  many 
causes  for  this:  the  decline  in  the  belief  in  future 
punishment,  the  general  belief  in  the  benevolence  of 
God,  change  in  the  ethical  estimate  of  much  conduct 
that  was  formerly  regarded  as  sinful,  perhaps  a 
certain  laxity  of  moral  standards. 

We  must  have  a  more  intelligent  view  of  sin. 
The  slums,  the  sweat  shops,  the  dying  children, 
the  wasted  youth,  all  proclaim  us  a  selfish,  sinful 
people.  We  need  a  conviction  of  sin  before  there  is 
any  hope  of  social  salvation.  If  we  would  use 
Rauschenbusch's  Prayers  of  the  Social  Awakening 
in  our  worship,  we  might  get  it.  Jesus  and  the 
Prophets  read  to  us  thoughtfully  might  bring  us  to 
a  godly  sorrow.  We  must  revive  the  symboHsm 
of  the  cross.  We  may  give  the  penitential  Psalms 
their  true  social  meaning  and  cry  indeed,  ^'God 
have  mercy  upon  us." 


i66  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

The  introduction  into  our  worship  of  a  definite 
element  calculated  to  help  us  to  feel  our  social  sins 
and  to  repent  of  them  is  an  important  need  in  our 
present-day  religious  education. 

The  object  of  all  religion  is  atonement,  if  we  may 
read  it  at-one-ment.  Whether  it  be  primitively  con- 
ceived as  satisfying  God  and  thus  averting  danger 
and  securing  benefits,  whether  it  be  conceived  in  the 
modern  evangelistic  sense  as  getting  right  with  God, 
that  is,  meeting  the  Divine  conditions  of  pardon  and 
spiritual  blessings,  whether  it  be  conceived  as  recog- 
nition of  human  failure  and  limitation  with  an  expecta- 
tion of  Divine  help  for  nobler  living  and  a  better 
society,  religion  looks  to  a  surcease  of  the  inward 
conflict  and  a  resultant  peace. 

The  great  religious  souls  have  been  conscious  of 
what  psychology  recognizes  as  a  release  of  tension, 
relaxation.  The  ^'  fears  within  and  fightings  without  '* 
are  over.     The  soul  is  satisfied. 

Religious  literature  is  full  of  the  expression  of  this 
peace  of  the  spirit.  Jesus  promised  this  experience 
to  his  disciples,  ''Ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls.'' 

Worship  properly  develops  the  feeling  of  peace. 
We  confess  our  sins  and  receive  the  assurance  that  He 
is  faithful  and  just  to  forgive  us  our  sins.  We  seek 
help  and  receive  the  assurance,  ''My  grace  is  suf- 
ficient for  thee. "  We  are  at  peace.  How  fitting  that 
worship  should  close  with  a  benediction. 

Proceeding  in  the  analysis  of  rehgious  feeling  to  a 
fifth  element,  I  would  mention  confidence.     I  choose 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  167 

this  word  rather  than  faith  because  the  latter  has 
been  ahnost  captured  by  intellectuahsm.  When  we 
say  faith  we  think  of  opinion,  but  when  we  say  con- 
fidence we  think  of  personal  relationship.  That  has 
ever  been  the  characteristic  of  the  highest  religion. 
The  Bible  is  the  great  literature  of  confidence.  It 
has  just  enough  of  skepticism  to  throw  into  bold  rehef 
its  triumphant  trust.  Job  may  rebel,  Jeremiah  may 
despair,  the  psalmist  may  sing  de  profundis,  but 
they  all  come  out  into  the  sunlight.  Only  Ecclesi- 
astes  has  no  faith,  and  the  editors  have  even  given 
some  to  him.  The  martyrs  may  cry,  "How  long, 
O  Lord,  how  long,"  but  the  vision  shows  them  with 
palms  of  victory  in  their  hands. 

Van  Dyke  wrote  a  gospel  for  an  age  of  doubt. 
You  cannot  argue  men  into  faith.  Let  a  beautiful 
voice  sing  to  me,  "I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth," 
and  it  is  easier  for  me  to  believe  in  the  life  beyond 
than  when  I  read  any  treatise  on  immortality.  Let 
me  sing  with  a  hundred  comrades  *'How  firm  a 
foundation,  ye  saints  of  the  Lord,"  and  I  find  myself 
believing  that  God  is  here,  while  the  lurking  skepti- 
cism that  all  life  is  chance  is  driven  away. 

The  contagion  of  faith  is  wonderfully  manifest  in 
worship.  Of  course  the  psychology  of  such  attitudes 
of  confidence  is  very  simple  and  that  is  a  stumbling- 
block  to  some  people.  They  object  that  they  do  not 
wish  to  put  themselves  into  the  way  of  being  influ- 
enced by  mere  feeling.  During  the  great  days  that 
have  just  passed  we  were  not  ashamed  deliberately  to 


1 68  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

organize  the  technique  by  which  we  could  stimulate 
patriotic  feeling.  We  said,  Bring  the  flags,  sing  the 
songs,  let  the  bands  play,  show  us  the  boys  in  khaki, 
we  want  to  be  stirred,  we  want  to  be  impelled  to  give 
our  money  for  Liberty  bonds,  to  spend  our  time  in 
Red  Cross  service,  to  do  all  that  our  government 
calls  upon  us  to  do. 

It  is  hard  to  believe  in  God.  His  voice  is  drowned 
in  the  market-place  and  in  the  halls  of  pleasure.  We 
need  another  hour  and  another  place  where  the  men 
who  have  believed  him  can  tell  us  their  faith,  where 
the  poetic  souls  who  have  seen  him  may  sing  to  us 
their  faith,  where  the  symbols  that  revealed  him  may 
touch  our  imagination,  where  we  may  give  our  souls 
a  chance  to  believe  the  best  that  it  is  in  us  to  be- 
lieve. 

With  the  highest  psychological  skill  at  our  disposal 
we  must  plan  the  worship  of  the  children,  youth,  and 
adults  that  there  may  be  a  social  attainment  of  con- 
fidence in  the  good  God  and  the  good  world  and  the 
better  tomorrow. 

A  notable  religious  feeling  is  joy.  In  primitive 
rehgion  where  divinity  was  near  to  men  and  the 
immediate  cause  of  all  happenings,  every  common 
joy  had  its  religious  quality.  The  gladness  of  awaken- 
ing Hfe  in  the  spring  time,  the  exuberant  happi- 
ness of  the  harvest,  the  joy  of  marriage,  and  the 
pleasure  of  a  thousand  lesser  occasions  were  all 
expressed  with  religious  ceremony,  for  the  gods  were 
doing  well  to  men. 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  169 

Two  conditions  have  robbed  modern  religion  of 
its  joy.  Our  sense  of  the  order  of  nature  has  made  the 
succession  of  the  seasons  commonplace.  We  know 
the  conditions  of  good  crops,  the  character  of  the 
blights,  the  scales,  the  insects  that  spoil  our  efforts. 
We  garner  our  harvests  with  huge  machinery  instead 
of  with  the  uniting  enterprises  of  long  ago.  More- 
over most  of  us  live  in  the  cities,  where  the  change 
of  seasons  means  principally  a  change  of  clothing. 
So  God  is  gone  out  of  nature. 

We  get  much  of  our  joy  from  our  pleasures. 
Unhappily  reUgion  has  often  separated  itself  from 
pleasure,  for  pleasure  is  dangerous.  Primitive  reli- 
gion was  not  afraid  of  the  allurements  of  the  flesh, 
but  frankly  accepted  the  allurement  and  after  its 
fashion  sanctified  it.  Ethical  religion  has  been  more 
concerned  with  inhibitions,  so  that  men  have  often 
found  their  joy  not  only  apart  from  rehgion  but  in 
spite  of  it.  We  do  not  know  much  about  Jesus' 
pleasures,  but  we  know  very  much  about  his  joy. 
The  word  ''happy"  was  ever  on  his  Ups.  Everything 
spoke  to  him  of  God — the  birds,  flowers,  children, 
loaves  and  fishes,  marriage,  parenthood,  and  life  itself. 

It  is  a  good  world,  a  glorious  world,  God's  world. 
Of  course  it  is  a  terrible  world  of  pain  and  sorrow 
and  calamity.  We  do  not  forget  that.  But  it  is  a 
world  of  richness  of  life,  of  abounding  health,  of 
beauty,  intelligence,  truth,  goodness,  love. 

Let  us  not  teach  mournful  songs  and  prayers  to 
children.    Let  them   sing  "Bless  the  Lord,  0  my 


170  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

soul. ''  Let  youth  be  happy.  That  is  what  Browning 
means  in  "Pippa  Passes.  '^  He  is  not  giving  his  total 
philosophy  of  life  in  Pippa's  song.  He  knows — and 
no  one  has  told  us  better — how  serious  life  is.  But  it 
is  good  for  youth  to  drink  the  cup  of  wholesome  joy. 
On  a  spring  morning,  on  a  holiday,  all  is  right  with 
the  world.  It  is  a  mood.  Our  worship  needs  that 
note.  People  should  often  go  from  church  aglow 
with  the  sense  of  God.  It  is  a  great  opportunity  of 
worship.  We  cannot  argue  people  into  joy.  They 
shall  not  feel  the  thrill  of  life  in  God's  wonderful  world 
at  the  end  of  a  syllogism.  But  they  may  find  it  in  a 
solemn  service  of  praise,  in  the  prayers.  Scriptures, 
and  messages,  that  sound  forth  the  ever-present  God. 

If  we  could  help  our  frivolous  pleasure-loving 
people  to  appreciate  the  joy  of  religious  exercises  we 
should  do  them  great  service.  It  is  because  we  are 
weary,  nervous,  overburdened,  that  we  turn  to  the 
easy  amusement  of  the  picture  film  and  of  the  vaude- 
ville. Paul  already  suggested  to  the  Christians  who 
wanted  the  delights  of  intoxication  that  they  could 
get  ecstatic  happiness  in  what  we  should  call  a 
''Community  sing."  The  '^Y"  in  the  army  camps 
at  home  and  abroad  found  that  Paul's  substitute  for 
debauchery  was  very  often  effective. 

Have  we  too  much  rationalized  our  religion? 
Shall  we  leave  to  the  periods  of  an  often  vulgar 
evangelism  the  religious  festivals  of  joy?  No.  We 
should  deliberately  educate  our  people  in  the  abound- 
ing expression  of  the  feeling  of  gladness. 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  171 

If  joy  is  a  satisfaction  in  that  which  is  good,  then 
hope  and  aspiration  may  express  the  feeling  that  we 
have  as  we  look  forward  to  that  which  is  to  be  better. 
As  an  expectancy  of  material  betterment  this  feeling 
is  probably  universal  in  the  earlier  forms  of  religion. 
With  the  exception  of  sheer  devil  worshipers  men 
have  always  thought  that  their  gods  would  do  some- 
thing for  them.  ^'Hope  springs  eternal  in  the  human 
breast.''  It  has  generally  been  connected  with 
rehgion. 

This  is  entirely  true  of  the  wonderful  hope  that 
stretches  beyond  death  to  the  life  hereafter.  How 
deeply  men  have  been  moved  by  that  anticipation  is 
written  in  the  exultant  chapters  of  the  New  Testament 
and  in  the  major  part  of  our  Christian  hymnody. 

Religious  hope  becomes  ethical  in  a  longing  for 
personal  character  and  for  social  amelioration. 
Worship  has  been  remarkably  successful  in  stimulat- 
ing aspiration  after  goodness.  How  men  have  longed 
in  the  sacred  hours  and  in  the  sacred  places  to  be 
holy.  The  sermon  as  a  part  of  worship  has  been 
more  successful  in  this  direction  than  perhaps  in 
any  other.  To  use  the  old  word,  worship  has  made  for 
sanctification.  Great  souls  have  never  been  satisfied 
with  their  Httle  goodness.  They  have  felt  that  human 
life  was  not  long  enough  for  the  perfecting  of  the 
saint.  "Oh,  but  a  man's  reach  must  exceed  his 
grasp,  or  what's  a  heaven  for?'* 

In  any  reinterpretation  of  character-making  we 
shall  need  to  keep  worship  as  our  great  ally.     There 


172  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

are  many  other  sources  of  motivation,  but  prayer, 
Scripture,  sermoa,  are  of  incomparable  value.  There 
is  need  of  a  careful  educational  process  to  enable 
people  to  secure  the  best  values. 

But  the  noblest  aspiration  is  for  social  good. 
There  is  of  course  a  danger  of  a  refined  selfishness  in 
the  desire  that  one  may  be  personally  sanctified,  but 
the  longing  for  a  better  world  of  men  is  wholly  pure. 

Undoubtedly  in  this  matter  knowledge  plays  a 
very  large  part.  If  we  learn  the  facts  concerning 
our  neighbors,  especially  the  harsh  facts  of  the 
vmhappiness  of  children,  the  exploitation  of  youth, 
of  womanhood,  of  manhood,  shameful  conditions  of 
housing  and  of  labor,  these  facts  are  likely  to  stir 
us  to  hope  and  determination  for  something  better. 
But  prayer  can  do  it  wonderfully.  And  song.  It 
has  long  been  noted  that  our  hymnody  is  weak  at 
this  point.  Nor  have  the  attempts  to  write  social 
hymns  been  very  successful.  Most  people  who  try 
it  succeed  only  in  writing  sociological  hymns,  which 
is  a  very  different  thing.  But  there  are  some  hymns 
that  stir  the  soul  to  longing  after  a  better  world. 
We  must  practice  our  people  in  them. 

And  here  is  the  noblest  place  of  the  sermon.  I  am 
thinking  of  the  sermon  as  a  part  of  worship.  Not  as 
an  argument  but  as  prophecy — picture  and  appeal. 
Who  can  read  Jesus'  parable  of  the  Judgment  without 
longing  to  serve  the  Master  in  serving  his  brethren  ? 

Allied  to  this  feeling  of  social  aspiration  is  the 
very  significant  religious  feeUng  of  mission.     This 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  173 

is  probably  not  a  universal  religious  emotion.  It  is 
doubtful  if  Chemosh  sent  his  worshipers  on  life- 
giving  errands.  But  the  higher  religions  have  a 
God  who  sends  men  to  do  good  to  their  fellows. 
The  feeling  may  express  itself  in  a  range  of  activity 
from  the  most  partisan  propagandism  to  the  most 
unselfish  service.  But  its  motivating  energy  is  of 
the  greatest.  The  apostles,  prophets,  missionaries, 
reformers,  ministers,  teachers,  social-service  workers 
and  the  finer  type  of  statesmen,  a  Lincoln,  a  John 
Bright,  a  Gladstone,  a  Wilson,  have  this  sense  of 
mission.  And  common  folk  with  simple  tasks  often 
have  it — Sunday-school  teachers,  fathers  and  mothers, 
older  brothers  and  sisters. 

The  sense  of  mission  is  often  born  in  the  hour  of 
worship.  When  one  sees  the  vision  and  hears  the 
Sanctus  one  also  hears  the  voice,  '^Whom  shall  we 
send?"  and  answers,  ''Here  am  I,  send  me." 

Would  God  that  all  the  Lord's  people  were  proph- 
ets of  the  new  social  order.  There  is  not  a  more 
glorious  opportunity  in  our  modern  life  than  in  the 
service  of  worship  if  we  can  vitalize  it  and  educate 
our  people  to  its  appreciation. 

The  greatest  religious  feeling  is  love.  When 
they  asked  Jesus  to  smn  up  the  Commandments  he 
stated  them  as  love.  How  can  an  emotion  be  com- 
manded? Can  it  be  our  duty  to  have  a  certain 
feeling?  It  is  the  common  thought  that  feelings 
come  and  go  and  are  inevitable.  Affection  is  one 
of  the  most  fundamental  impulses,   but  it  is  very 


174  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

capricious.  Parental  affection  is  the  only  one  that 
can  be  at  all  depended  upon.  But  even  in  the  primi- 
tive religions  affection  has  a  place.  Men  generally 
have  some  affection  for  their  deity.  And  the  develop- 
ment of  that  affection  in  depth  and  in  ethical  quality 
is  a  sure  test  of  religious  development.  As  religion 
becomes  more  ethical  the  love  of  God  extends  to 
love  of  men.  It  is  the  peculiar  characteristic  of  the 
Bible  that  it  so  universally  insists  that  there  can 
be  no  religion  without  unselfish  human  love.  The 
great  saints  have  ever  been  great  lovers. 

Our  world  needs  love.  We  have  plenty  of  hate, 
suspicion,  shrewdness,  diplomacy.  We  need  love,  love 
between  peoples,  love  between  classes  of  people, 
love  among  neighbors,  love  in  schools  and  families, 
love  in  Christian  communities,  in  churches.  How 
shall  we  be  inspired  with  love?  Worship  is  a  tech- 
nique for  arousing  love.  The  imagery,  the  symbols, 
the  poetry  which  may  stimulate  the  emotion  are  all 
there.  ^'How  lovely  are  thy  tabernacles,  0  Lord  of 
Hosts.'*  ^' Blest  be  the  tie  that  binds  our  hearts  in 
Christian  love. "  From  earliest  kindergarten  through 
all  our  youth  and  adult  worship  the  glorious  note  of 
love  should  be  sounded. 

I  have  tried  to  analyze  the  religious  feeling.  There 
may  be  more  elements  than  these  nine  that  I  have 
mentioned,  but  I  think  these  are  the  important 
elements.  They  are  not  altogether  separate.  Reli- 
gious feeling  has  a  certain  community.  The  syn- 
thesis of  these  different  feelings  is  a  kind  of  absorption 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  175 

into  God,  '^I  and  my  Father  are  one,"  "I  delight 
to  do  thy  will,  0  my  Father."  This  feeling  is  not 
only  individual;  it  is  socialized  and  includes  men  as  at 
least  potentially  a  part  of  the  unity;  *' All  shall  know 
Him  from  the  least  even  unto  the  greatest."  This 
feeling  of  unity  with  all  that  seems  to  be  worthy, 
with  the  supreme  worthiness,  with  all  possible  human 
worthiness,  with  all  the  worth  of  nature,  this  is 
religion.  To  engender  this  feeling  is  the  purpose  of 
worship. 

Returning  to  our  definition  of  worship  as  any 
technique  that  stimulates  religious  feeling,  we  are 
ready  to  inquire  what  this  technique  may  be.  It 
cannot  be  arbitrarily  prescribed.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  techniques  as  varied  as  the  Quaker  meeting  and 
pontifical  mass  produce  the  same  results  in  different 
persons,  sometimes  in  the  same  person. 

It  is  commonly  asserted  that  there  are  funda- 
mental differences  of  temperament  which  must 
determine  practices  of  worship.  There  is  supposed 
to  be  a  ritualistic  temperament  which  inevitably 
requires  a  person  to  be  an  Episcopalian,  a  certain 
buoyancy  that  can  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less 
than  Methodism  and  finds  itself  very  unhappy  when 
Methodism  is  toned  down,  a  certain  soberness  of 
temperament  that  can  only  find  fitting  expression 
in  the  Presbyterian  order,  and  a  critical  chilliness 
that  demands  the  Congregational  forms  and,  at 
lower  degrees  of  temperature,  seeks  the  liberal 
churches. 


176  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

Of  course  this  is  nonsense.  Inasmuch  as  most 
people  find  themselves  perfectly  satisfied  with  the 
church  of  their  parents  there  would  be,  if  this  theory 
were  correct,  a  hereditary  transmission  of  tempera- 
ment. Moreover,  one  finds  people  who  are  happy 
in  a  free  and  easy  religious  service,  deriving  also  the 
greatest  satisfaction  from  the  extreme  formahsm  of 
the  Masonic  ritual.  The  supposedly  staid  Presby- 
terians have  been  the  leaders  in  the  tabernacle 
evangelism  of  recent  times  which,  whatever  else  it 
may  be,  can  scarcely  be  designated  as  staid.  And 
congregations  which  have  been  somewhat  super- 
ficially reproached  for  coldness  have  not  seldom 
been  stirred  by  emotions  too  profound  for  noise. 

There  are  doubtless  temperamental  differences. 
But  these  do  not  breed  to  type  on  denominational 
lines.  The  matter  is  largely  determined  by  custom 
and  education.  The  problem  of  worship  is  thus  an 
educational  one.  There  is  neither  divine  nor  histori- 
cal prescription  to  determine  it.  It  is  wholly  a 
question  of  ascertaining  what  techniques  will  be 
effective  and  how  the  people  may  be  trained  to 
employ  them. 

May  I  state  the  problem  in  a  series  of  proposi- 
tions ? 

I.  The  technique  of  worship  for  any  particular 
congregation  must  be  congruous  with  the  religious 
tradition  of  the  worshipers.  The  stations  of  the 
cross  are  quite  natural  in  the  Roman  Catholic  church, 
but  they  would  be  utterly  artificial  to  ourselves. 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  i77 

The  Quaker  silences  have  the  most  effective  psycho- 
logical appropriateness,  but  they  would  be  hopelessly 
negative  to  most  of  our  congregations.  The  cere- 
monial of  immersion,  which  is  a  highly  impressive 
symbolism  to  those  who  are  accustomed  to  it,  is 
often  positively  repulsive  to  those  to  whom  it  seems  a 
meticulous  literalism. 

I  was  recently  in  a  Memorial  Day  parade  in  a 
small  town  in  Illinois.  An  occasional  citizen  sheep- 
ishly took  off  his  hat  as  the  flag  was  carried  past. 
But  most  of  them  could  not  manage  it.  Doffing  the 
hat  is  not  part  of  their  social  heritage. 

We  cannot  then  arbitrarily  create  a  worship  tech- 
nique. It  must  be  congruous  with  the  reHgious  tra- 
dition of  the  people. 

2.  The  technique  must  have  the  prestige  of 
religious  tradition.  Symbolisms  cannot  be  created 
by  fiat.  If  a  rehgious  convention  should  ordain 
that  an  airplaine  should  be  introduced  into  ecclesi- 
astical architecture  as  a  symbol  of  man's  reaching 
unto  heaven,  no  one  would  take  the  regulation 
seriously.  But  an  angel,  a  fair  youth  with  arms  and 
legs  and  wings — an  impossible  human  hexapod — is  a 
most  fitting  symbol.  Angels  belong  to  our  rehgious 
tradition.  We  shall  teach  our  children  that  they 
belong  m  the  reahn  of  fancy,  but  they  none  the  less 
express  our  rehgious  feelings. 

It  is  easier  to  destroy  than  to  create.  We  can 
impoverish  our  worship  by  neglect  of  the  reHgious 
elements  that  the  past  has  preserved  for  us  or  by 


178  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

rationalistic  antagonism  to  them,  but  it  will  be  very- 
hard  to  find  anything  to  take  their  place.  The 
utter  bareness,  unpoetic,  unimaginative  unloveliness 
of  our  Sunday-school  opening  and  closing  exercises, 
which  very  properly  are  not  even  called  worship,  is 
evidence  of  the  iconoclasm  with  which  we  have 
destroyed  that  which  had  the  prestige  of  religious 
tradition  without  finding  anything  significant  to 
supply  its  place. 

3.  We  must  develop  our  technique  freely  with  the 
use  of  all  available  elements.  All  things  are  ours. 
We  may  search  all  the  liturgies  for  prayers  and 
practices  that  may  be  helpful.  American  congre- 
gations know  only  one  prayer,  only  one  psalm, 
and  they  can  sing  only  the  Doxology  without  the 
book.  We  come  to  church  to  Hsten  to  a  speech  and 
to  a  concert,  and  we  have  forgotten  to  be  worshipers. 

It  will  take  the  greatest  skill  and  long  educational 
practice  to  discover  from  many  sources  the  elements 
of  prayer,  song,  response,  posture,  ritual  which  will 
evoke  for  us  the  feeUngs  that  are  the  deepest  meaning 
of  religion. 

Let  me  here  state  an  objection  even  at  the  risk  of 
digression.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  our  fathers  who 
knew  the  old  rituals  and  rejected  them  found  their 
fellowship  with  God  immediately.  Why  should  we 
need  what  they  discarded?  There  is  a  psychology 
of  negative  suggestion.  To  a  vigorous  soul  who  had 
seen  an  unethical  and  unspiritual  religion  connected 
with  the  elaborate  ritual  there  was  evidence  of  the 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  179 

immediate  presence  of  God  in  the  very  ugliness  and 
bareness  of  his  meetinghouse.  He  needed  nothing 
but  a  long  prayer,  a  long  sermon,  and  an  unharmoni- 
ous  psalm  to  stir  his  soul  to  the  depths  with  the 
sense  of  the  presence  of  God — a  sense  which  he  had 
already  brought  with  him  to  the  meetinghouse. 

But  negative  suggestion  only  operates  when 
there  is  consciousness  of  opposition.  Benjamin 
Franklin's  homespun  was  suggestive  of  repubUcan 
simplicity  amid  the  fopperies  of  the  French  court. 
But  it  would  be  ridiculous  to  wear  homespun  today 
when  any  gentleman  may  have  an  evening  coat. 

4.  The  criterion  of  a  technique  must  be  the  pos- 
sibihty  of  expressing  adequately  the  religious  feel- 
ings of  the  particular  congregation. 

I  say  the  possibility.  The  congregation  will  not 
know  its  own  possibilities  in  advance.  Let  me  refer 
more  sympathetically  to  the  Memorial  Day  parade 
which  I  have  already  mentioned.  A  class  of  fifty 
boys  in  one  of  the  elementary  schools  was  selected 
as  a  guard  of  honor  for  the  veterans  of  the  G.A.R. 
The  little  chaps  were  dressed  in  white  suits.  They 
had  their  own  marshal  mounted  on  a  pony.  They 
lined  up  and  saluted  as  we  drove  through  with  the 
dignity  of  young  Americans  who  understood  the 
meaning  of  that  great  day.  It  was  a  ritual  well 
worth  the  plan  and  practice. 

My  friend  H.  Augustine  Smith,  of  Boston  Uni- 
versity, goes  into  the  highways  and  hedges  and 
brings  in  the  gamins  and  makes  a  boys'  choir,  vested, 


i8o  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

effective,  reverential,  and  teaches  them  to  sing  the 
Elijah  choruses.  Under  his  guidance  the  Congre- 
gational churches  find  new  possibiUties  of  worship 
of  which  they  never  dreamed. 

5.  The  minister  must  be  a  master  of  worship- 
technique. 

There's  the  rub.  Our  ministers  do  not  know 
how  to  preach  very  well,  but  they  scarcely  know 
how  to  lead  worship  at  all.  It  is  an  art,  worthy  of 
the  most  careful  study  and  of  the  most  painstaking 
preparation. 

Shall  we  say  that  any  man  led  by  the  Spirit  of 
God  can  lead  a  congregation  in  worship?  Let  me 
suggest  a  parallel.  I  am  myself  greatly  stirred  by 
the  song  "If  with  all  your  hearts  ye  truly  seek  me.'' 
Sometimes  it  is  just  the  song  which  I  need  in  my 
service.  I  feel  its  beauty,  I  appreciate  its  meaning. 
1  think  I  have  a  right  to  say  that  the  Spirit  of  God 
inspires  me  with  that  song.  Then  why  should  not 
I  sing  the  song  for  the  congregation  ?  Simply  because 
I  cannot  sing.  I  have  every  qualification  of  a  great 
singer  except  vocal  ability.  One  must  be  a  master 
of  song  to  help  a  congregation  in  song;  one  must  be  a 
master  of  worship  to  lead  a  congregation  in  worship. 
I  assume  the  spiritual  preparation.  I  am  speaking 
of  the  technical  preparation.  The  art  of  pubHc 
prayer,  of  the  arrangement  of  a  service,  of  the  stimulus 
of  song,  of  the  creation  of  a  mood,  of  the  molding  of  a 
congregation  into  a  unity  is  a  consummate  art.  If 
some  men  have  possessed  it  without  study  that  Is 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  i8i 

only  another  example  of  genius.  There  is  no  law  for 
genius.     But  most  of  us  have  to  work  for  our  skill. 

6.  Worship  calls  for  a  carefully  planned  and 
graded  process  of  education  by  which,  beginning  with 
young  childhood,  people  may  be  trained  to  those 
practices  which  may  be  useful  as  the  stimulus  and 
expression  of  rehgious  emotion. 

It  cannot  be  done  in  a  day.  Children  are  little 
ritualists.  As  they  learn  the  right  decorums  and 
politenesses  of  life  in  home  and  school  (if  happily 
they  do  learn  them),  so  may  they  learn  simple  prac- 
tices of  worship  that  may  be  carried  on  into  mature 
years  with  growing  appreciation. 

We  must  distinguish  between  instruction  in  the 
elements  of  worship  and  the  actual  use  of  those 
elements  in  the  worship  itself.  Everything  should 
be  studied  and  understood — hymns,  prayers,  postures, 
the  ritual  of  the  offering.  Much  may  be  committed 
to  memory. 

The  problem  of  grading  in  worship  is  not  so 
difficult  as  in  biblical  and  other  study.  Many  ele- 
ments of  worship  are  universal.  Even  little  chil- 
dren will  have  points  of  contact  with  them  and 
gain  enrichment  of  experience  by  sharing  them  with 
the  general  congregation.  So  we  may  bring  the 
children  back  into  the  church,  not  for  the  long  prayer 
(if  that  is  still  to  be  retained),  not  for  the  elaborate 
anthem  (if  indeed  that  is  still  essential),  not  for  the 
hymns  expressive  of  more  mature  feeling,  and  cer- 
tainly not  for  the  sermon,  but  for  half  an  hour  of 


i82  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

worship  with  processional,  recessional,  the  Doxology, 
the  Lord^s  prayer,  the  General  Confession,  the 
General  Thanksgiving,  the  recited  Psalm,  simple 
Scripture,  offering  received  with  dignified  ritual, 
hymns  carefully  learned  and  understood  and  sung 
with  the  fresh  enthusiasm  of  young  voices.  We  can 
develop  a  genuine  congregational  worship.  I  like 
to  call  it  in  a  large  sense  family  worship.  The 
children  may  retire  for  educational  activities  with 
the  sense  of  faithful  and  solemn  worship  in  their 
hearts,  and  the  congregation  may  remain  for  the 
sermon,  ready  for  the  ethical  impulse  which  the 
sense  of  the  presence  of  God  has  prepared  them  to 
receive. 

Theodore  Gerald  Soares 


SOCIAL  ETHICS 


THE  EQUIPMENT  OF  THE  MINISTER  AS 
A  SOCIAL  REFORMER 

No  man  with  any  moral  passion  in  his  nature  can 
be  indifferent  to  the  problems  that  now  confront 
society.  His  special  avocation  may  be  what  you 
please — Kterature,  art,  education,  law,  the  ministry, 
business,  politics — but  if  his  sympathies  and  thoughts 
carry  him  beyond  self-interest  at  all,  if  he  shares  in 
any  vital  and  imaginative  way  in  the  life  of  his  country 
and  the  great  world,  he  is  sure  to  be  caught  up  by  the 
spirit  of  the  time  and  forced  to  reflect,  if  not  to  speak 
or  write  or  act,  on  the  problems  of  human  betterment. 
Carlyle,  for  example,  began  his  literary  Hfe  as  a 
translator  and  interpreter  of  German  literature  to 
the  English-speaking  people,  but  the  condition  of 
England  in  the  thirties  and  forties  of  last  century  so 
stirred  his  heart  and  imagination  that  he  soon  ceased 
to  be  a  translator  and  interpreter  of  other  men's 
works  and  poured  forth  his  own  passionate  con- 
victions in  his  Sartor  Resartus  and  Past  and  Present. 
Tolstoi  began  his  life  as  a  soldier  and  a  novelist,  but 
for  long  years  before  his  death  he  spent  himself  in  a 
most  solemn  quest  for  the  secret  of  spiritual  and 
social  regeneration.  John  Ruskin  was  at  first  an 
art  critic,  but  when  he  discovered  that  art  had  a 

183 


i84  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

deep  root  in  the  moral  nature  of  man,  and  that  no 
country  could  produce  a  noble  art  whose  ideals  were 
basely  and  selfishly  materialistic,  he  became  a  per- 
fervid  and  uncompromising  preacher  of  national 
righteousness  and  a  more  ethical  poHtical  economy. 
William  Morris  in  his  earlier  life  was  a  poet,  ^'the 
idle  singer  of  an  empty  day,  "as  he  called  himself; 
but  he  ended  it  as  a  socialist,  and  a  writer  of  pamphlets 
and  campaign  songs  for  the  Socialist  party  in  England. 
H.  Rider  Haggard  spent  many  years  of  his  life  in 
writing  sensational  romances,  but  the  Zeitgeist  found 
him  also,  and  for  several  years  back  he  has  been 
engaged  in  the  social  work  of  the  Salvation  Army. 

And  if  hterature  has  led  earnest,  sympathetic, 
imaginative  men  and  women  more  and  more  into 
the  field  of  ''the  social  problem,"  the  work  of  the 
ministry  is  doing  so  even  to  a  greater  degree.  The 
minister  is  no  longer  only  a  pastor  and  an  inter- 
preter of  Scripture.  A  man  cannot  minister  to 
the  needs  of  the  age,  in  the  big  industrial  centers 
at  least,  unless  he  can  interpret,  not  merely  the 
books  of  the  great  dead,  but  also  the  movements 
of  the  life  of  his  time.  It  is  well,  when  possible, 
that  each  individual  should  repeat  the  experience 
of  the  ages  in  his  own  development,  should  come 
to  a  knowledge  of  himself  and  his  times  through 
a  knowledge  of  all  the  great  master  minds  from 
Homer  to  Hegel.  But  he  must  not  take  up  his 
permanent  abode  anywhere  on  the  way,  but  push 
on  to  the  end  of  the  journey.    It  is  well  to  be  able 


SOCIAL  ETHICS  185 

to  interpret  a  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  or  a  dialogue  of 
Plato,  or  a  letter  of  Saint  Paul,  or  a  canto  of  Dante, 
or  a  critique  of  Kant,  but  if  we  are  to  meet  the  needs 
of  our  time,  we  must  also  be  able  to  interpret  the 
meaning  of  a  great  miners'  strike,  the  human  signifi- 
cance of  the  world-wide  movement  called  Socialism 
and  the  social  implications  of  big  industry  and  large 
cities  and  the  intermingHng  of  races  and  ideals. 
A  knowledge  of  the  past  is  essential  to  an  understand- 
ing of  the  present  and  the  future,  but  we  must  use  the 
past,  not  as  a  home  to  live  in,  but  as  the  foundation 
of  the  home  that  we  are  in  the  process  of  building. 
We  live  in  an  age  when  the  world  is  thinking  seriously 
and  passionately,  if  confusedly  and  hurriedly,  on  the 
problems  of  human  betterment,  and  we  cannot 
minister  to  that  age  unless  we  feel  its  spirit  and  are 
working  at  its  problems.  We  must  equip  ourselves 
so  as  to  be  able  to  understand  and  guide  and  encourage 
the  great  work  of  reform  whfch  has  become  so  urgent 
in  all  industrial  countries. 

In  discussing  my  subject,  namely,  *'The  equipment 
of  the  minister  as  a  social  reformer,"  there  is  no 
need  to  labor  the  statement  that  the  moral  enthusi- 
asm which  springs  from  sympathy,  pity,  the  senti- 
ment of  justice,  and  the  social  instincts  and  sentiments 
generally  is  not  the  only  equipment  the  social  reformer 
needs.  That  is  indispensable  as  a  main  part  of  his 
motive  power,  but  it  is  no  guarantee  that  he  will  not 
repeat  experiments  that  have  been  tried  and  found 
wanting,  that  he  will  not  try  impossible  things,  or 


i86  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

that  he  will  not  antagonize  other  forces  which,  while 
not  exactly  working  with  him,  are  moving  in  his 
direction.  As  there  is  a  technique  at  the  basis  of 
every  art,  as  there  are  mathematical  and  mechanical 
principles  at  the  basis  of  all  practical  engineering 
skill,  as  there  is  a  detailed  knowledge  of  anatomy  and 
physiology  at  the  basis  of  scientific  medicine,  so  there 
must  be  some  adequate  foundation  for  the  work  of 
the  social  engineer.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  our 
so-called  social  sciences  have  not  as  yet  developed 
any  body  of  principles  that  can  be  compared  for 
accuracy  and  efficiency  with  the  technique  of  the  arts, 
or  with  mechanics,  or  with  anatomy  and  physiology, 
but  such  knowledge  as  we  have  should  be  in  the 
possession  of  the  social  reformer,  if  not  in  detail,  at 
least  in  broad,  clear  outline.  Our  universal  democ- 
racy, of  course,  tends  to  obscure  this  fact.  We 
graduate  every  young  man  of  twenty-one  years  of 
age  as  a  social  engineer,  but  we  have  known  democracy 
long  enough  to  be  aware  that  its  success  depends  on 
sane,  well-informed,  progressive  leaders.  It  ought 
to  be  a  commonplace  in  an  age  which  lays  such 
stress  on  the  specialist  that  zeal  alone  is  not  an 
adequate  equipment  for  the  social  reformer. 

What,  then,  constitutes  an  adequate  equipment? 
I  would  lay  down  as  the  first  requisite  a  genuinely 
systematic  knowledge  of  human  nature.  I  do  not 
mean  the  kind  of  knowledge  which  a  shrewd  business 
man  acquires  by  watching  men  and  women  closely 
in  the  world  of  trade,  politics,  and  society,  although 


SOCIAL  ETHICS  187 

such  knowledge  is  not  to  be  despised  altogether. 
I  mean  rather  the  knowledge  which  sociology  is 
gradually  gathering  from  biology,  psychology,  anthro- 
pology, and  history,  and  correlating  into  its  doctrine 
of  the  social  forces.  We  must  know  human  nature 
if  we  are  to  better  human  association,  and  we  cannot 
know  human  nature  unless  we  know  it  in  its  physical 
origins,  in  its  mental  and  social  processes,  in  its 
racial  divisions,  and  in  its  most  characteristic  histori- 
cal manifestations.  Again  and  again  in  the  history 
of  the  world,  movements  for  human  betterment  have 
signally  failed  because  they  were  based  on  inadequate 
knowledge  or  complete  ignorance  of  human  nature. 
Puritanism  tried  to  crush  the  dramatic  instinct  in 
Cromwell's  time,  but  only  brought  about  a  crude 
recrudescence  of  it  when  the  strong  arm  of  Cromwell 
was  removed  by  death.  Communism  always  goes 
to  pieces  on  the  rock  of  man's  desire  for  private 
property,  domestic  privacy,  and  personal  indepen- 
dence. Monasticism  finds  its  way  barred  by  the 
sex  instinct.  Idealism  will  have  it  that  all  peoples 
are  fit  for  self-government  simply  because  they  are 
human  beings,  but  experiments  fail  to  justify  that 
affirmation.  History  is  strewn  with  the  wrecks  of 
social  movements  that  came  to  disaster  simply 
because  they  did  not  take  into  account  the  funda- 
mental facts  of  human  nature. 

Our  first  obligation,  therefore,  as  reformers,  is 
to  study  as  profoundly  as  we  can  the  human  nature 
that  we  desire  to  remake,  on  its  subnormal,  normal, 


i88  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

and  supernormal  levels.  We  should  keep  in  touch 
with  what  the  biologists  are  saying  about  man's 
physical  antecedents.  Man,  although  on  the  way  to 
become  a  spiritual  being,  has  all  the  fundamental 
animal  instincts,  and  we  must  realize  how  powerful 
those  instincts  are  and  how  necessary  it  is  to  make 
provision  for  their  legitimate  expression.  Hunger, 
thirst,  the  sex  appetite,  the  parental  instinct,  the 
gregarious  instinct,  the  instinct  of  self-assertion,  the 
play  impulse,  the  demand  for  liberty — these  are  older 
than  the  individual,  older,  indeed,  than  the  human 
race,  and  wherever  society  is  so  organized  that  they 
cannot  find  normal  expression,  they  break  forth  in 
disorder  and  destruction.  Animal  instinct  does  not 
play  the  star  role  in  human  life  that  it  plays  in  the 
animal  world,  but  it  is  still  operative,  and  the  social 
reformer  should  have  the  clearest  possible  idea  of  its 
working.  The  more  idealistic  we  are,  the  more  must 
we  be  on  our  guard  against  overlooking  the  great 
instinctive  desires  that  impel  man  in  his  every-day 
activities.  We  never  can  explain  man  by  his  animal 
ancestry,  but  in  trying  to  improve  him  we  must  at 
least  take  account  of  what  his  physical  past  has  been. 
We  must  frankly  recognize  that  many  human  beings 
are  subnormal,  feeble-minded,  defective,  criminal, 
and  not  go  on  appealing  to  a  conscience  which  they 
have  not  got  when  we  ought  to  be  using  our  influence 
to  secure  institutional  care  for  them  and  to  segregate 
them  so  that  they  shall  not  be  able  to  reproduce 
their  kind.     We  must  learn  from  the  biologist  that 


SOCIAL  ETHICS  -  189 

sex-immorality  not  only  endangers  the  soul's  salvation, 
in  the  language  of  the  older  evangelicalism,  but  also 
threatens  the  future  of  the  whole  human  race.  We 
must  keep  the  significance  of  the  bodily  side  of  life  so 
constantly  in  mind  that  we  shall  never  forget  that 
bad  food,  unhygienic  tenements,  and  exhausting  toil 
blunt  the  sensibilities  and  ultimately  encourage 
thoughts,  sentiments,  and  deeds  that  brutalize  the 
soul.  The  main  weapon  of  the  minister  as  social 
reformer  must  always  be  his  appeal  to  the  conscience 
and  intelligence  of  the  people,  but,  instructed  by  the 
biologist,  he  will  always  bear  in  mind  that  a  human 
being  whose  instincts  are  starved  or  driven  under- 
ground or  inadequately  satisfied  is  not  very  likely  to  be 
in  a  mental  condition  to  respond  to  appeals  to  his 
higher  nature.  Biology  can  never  say  the  last  word 
about  man,  but  it  always  says  the  first  word,  and  the 
social  reformer  must  know  what  that  first  word  is. 
If  it  is  possible  to  doubt  the  reformer's  need  of 
some  knowledge  of  biology,  his  need  of  psychology 
cannot  be  questioned.  And  when  I  say  psychology, 
I  do  not  mean  merely  the  general  analysis  of  mental 
processes  which  we  find  in  an  ordinary  college  text- 
book or  even  the  experimental  laboratory  psychology 
which  has  become  so  popular  in  recent  years.  I  mean 
rather  that  practical  knowledge  of  the  total  working 
of  the  mind  which  we  find  in  recent  books  on  social 
psychology  and  the  psychology  of  religion  and  sug- 
gestion, etc.  Such  books  as  James's  Varieties  of 
Religious  Experience,   Ribot's  Creative   Imagination, 


igo  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

Sidis'  The  Psychology  of  Suggestion,  Hall's  Adolescence, 
or  the  works  of  McDougall,  Tarde,  Ross,  EUwood, 
etc.,  on  social  psychology  are  not  mere  academic  text- 
books. They  furnish  knowledge  about  and  insight 
into  human  nature,  especially  in  its  social  phases, 
which  every  public  leader  of  men  and  women  ought 
to  possess.  We  cannot  understand  the  past  and  we 
cannot  shape  or  guide  the  future  unless  we  know 
something  about  the  role  that  imagination,  imitation, 
suggestion,  the  mob-consciousness,  and  beHef  have 
played  and  are  playing  in  human  life. 

For  example,  every  spiritual  leader  stands  appalled 
now  and  then  as  he  sees  the  lure  that  money-making 
has  for  the  youth  of  North  America.  He  sees  them 
wild  with  speculation,  turning  sharp  corners  for  the 
sake  of  gain,  working  almost  with  the  fury  of  demons 
to  beat  their  rivals  or  to  destroy  their  competition 
altogether.  He  sees  the  wealth  of  the  continent 
growing  at  a  rate  absolutely  unprecedented  in  the 
history  of  man.  And  as  he  watches  the  headlong 
scramble,  he  is  apt  at  first  to  say  to  himself:  ''What 
a  sordid  people  we  Americans  are !  How  materialistic 
and  vulgar  we  seem  in  comparison  (let  me  say)  with 
the  Hindus  of  India!  What  culture  can  ever  be 
developed  in  a  people  who  can  give  themselves  with 
such  energy  to  the  amassing  of  mere  external  wealth! " 

But  here  his  psychological  insight  into  human 
nature  comes  to  his  assistance.  He  asks  himself: 
"Is  sordidness,  after  all,  the  complete  explanation 
of  our  economic  energy  ?    Is  it  the  mere  blind  greed 


SOCIAL  ETHICS  191 

for  things  that  is  our  motive  power  ?'^  And  the 
answer  comes:  It  is  not.  The  love  of  activity,  the 
love  of  self-expression,  the  love  of  power,  the  joy  that 
the  imagination  has  in  conceiving  great  schemes,  the 
challenge  to  man's  will  that  great  opportunities 
afford,  the  stimulus  of  great  horizons  and  wide  spaces, 
the  passion  for  manipulating  large  masses  of  people — 
these,  as  well  as  the  desire  of  things  for  the  sake  of 
enjoyment,  constitute  the  driving  force  of  our  money 
civilization.  A  few  great  men  among  us  have  achieved 
colossal  power  by  means  of  wealth;  their  mere  word 
has  such  an  influence  in  the  economic  world,  either  to 
bless  or  to  curse,  that  they  seem  like  Providence  giving 
or  withholding  the  rains  and  the  seasons;  they  have 
struck  the  imagination  of  youth  almost  like  demigods; 
the  newspapers  have  told  the  stories  of  their  lives  over 
and  over  again;  imitation  and  suggestion  have  been 
busy  among  our  young  people  from  ocean  to  ocean — 
and  now  we  have  an  army  of  people  engaged  in  the 
scramble  to  be  millionaires.  But  it  is  not  all  irredeem- 
ably sordid.  Once  our  economic  life  settles  down  to  a 
more  static  condition,  once  we  have  cut  off  some  of 
the  sources  of  ill-gotten  wealth,  other  types  will 
spring  up  among  us,  will  dominate  the  imagination  of 
youth,  and  by  imitation  and  suggestion  sway  our  life 
toward  more  ideal  ends.  Misdirected  energy  is 
always  more  hopeful  than  a  sensuous,  luxurious, 
languorous  ease. 

In  some  such  way  as  this  will  psychology  help 
us  to  understand  our  common  human  nature.     It 


192  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

will  teach  us  by  what  forces  the  popular  imagination 
is  dominated;    it  will  enable  us  to  understand  the 
r61e  of  the  hero,   the  picturesque  personality,   the 
revivalist,  the  crowd,  the  fad,  the  craze,  the  psychical 
epidemic;   and  it  will  teach  us  by  what  educational 
means  the  mass  can  be  individualized  and  made  to 
respond  to  reason  and  to  exercise  judgment.    Such 
a  psychology  cannot  be  learned  by  the  mere  mastery 
of  a  textbook  or  two  in  college.    Its  greatest  text- 
books are  the  histories  and  biographies  in  which 
the  total  working  of  human  nature  is  revealed  on  the 
largest  scale.    The  knowledge  of  it  is  the  achievement 
of  a  lifetime,  but  the  young  reformer  has  at  hand 
today  a  body  of  sound  psychological  knowledge  of 
which  the  seminary  of  my  day  was  quite  ignorant. 
When  I  was  a  theological  student  twenty-five 
years   ago,   anyone  proposing  to   study   economics 
as  a  preparation  for  the  ministry  would  have  been 
frankly  regarded  as  an  unspiritual  person.     It  did 
not  occur  to  us  then  that  many  ethical  problems 
would  sooner  or  later  inevitably  lead  us  into  the 
economic  field.     But  many  things  before  the  war, 
and  especially  the  war  and  all  its  consequences,  have 
made  it  clear  that  the  minister  can  no  longer  aft'ord 
to  be  ignorant  of  the  major  facts  and  theories  of  the 
economic  fife.     As  the  prophet  of  the  brotherhood  of 
man  and  the  herald  of  good-will,  he  cannot  be  deaf 
to  the  controversy  which  already  has  gone  far  to 
divide  humanity  into  two  warring  classes.     We  are  in 
the  midst  of  a  struggle  between  property  and  labor 


SOCIAL  ETHICS  193 

which  may  be  prolonged  far  into  the  future  and 
which  concerns  itself  at  almost  every  point  with 
questions  of  right  and  wrong.  To  such  a  struggle  the 
minister  simply  cannot  remain  indifferent,  and  unless 
he  is  capable  of  forming  independent  judgments, 
he  is  likely  to  be  betrayed  by  his  prejudice  or  his  sym- 
pathies into  positions  which  may  make  his  service 
to  the  whole  community  impossible.  His  main  task 
is  to  hold  the  community  together,  to  interpret  people 
to  each  other,  and  to  create  that  atmosphere  of 
good-will  without  which  scarcely  any  worthy  and 
permanent  reform  can  be  effected. 

Now,  if  he  is  to  perform  this  task  adequately, 
he  must  master  the  leading  principles  of  the  science 
of  economics.  Each  party  to  the  struggle  has  its 
own  kind  of  economic  theory,  but,  in  the  very  nature 
of  the  case,  neither  party  is  likely  to  see  things  in  a 
large,  liberal  way.  The  thinking  of  men  who  act  in 
the  spirit  of  class  is  mob-thinking.  Men  believe 
what  their  class  interest  dictates.  As  in  the  time  of 
war,  they  beheve  what  helps  the  cause.  Disbelievers, 
whatever  reasons  they  may  give  for  their  disbeHef, 
are  branded  as  heretics.  The  upholders  of  the 
existing  order  stress  the  need  of  capital  and  ever  more 
capital,  the  value  of  the  service  of  the  organizer, 
the  justice  of  paying  a  man  what  his  services  are 
worth,  the  social  demand  for  large  production,  but 
pass  lightly  over  the  iniquity  of  stock-watering, 
stock-gambling,  monopoly,  inadequately  taxed  inheri- 
tance, and  all  the  other  devices  by  which  wealth 


194  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

accumulates  in  the  hands  of  those  who  do  not  pro- 
duce it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  labor  organization 
develops  an  economics  that  suits  its  purpose.  It 
makes  a  gospel  of  the  economics  of  Marx  and  estab- 
lishes colleges  to  teach  this  dogma  as  churches  teach 
theirs.  It  is  all  alive  to  the  contribution  of  labor, 
but  undervalues  or  overlooks  entirely  the  contribu- 
tion of  the  organizer  and  the  capitalist.  Labor  has 
through  past  ages  been  an  oppressed  class  and  is  now 
seeking  deHverance,  and  its  theoretical  thinking  is 
inevitably  hurried,  partisan,  uncritical,  and  passionate. 
Now,  even  though  the  minister  should  never 
touch  on  an  economic  subject  in  the  pulpit,  he  ought 
to  know  economics  profoundly  enough  to  be  able  to 
use  his  influence  toward  a  fair  and  impartial  discussion 
of  economics  in  his  community.  His  policy  must  be 
one  of  mastering  his  prejudices  so  as  to  be  able  to 
listen  to  both  sides.  He  must  listen  to  the  masses, 
for  they  know  best,  through  the  constant  pressure  of 
fact  on  their  lives,  where  our  present  system  of  pro- 
duction and  distribution  is  weak  and  unfair.  He 
must  listen  to  the  masters  of  industry,  for  they  know 
best  how  vast  our  present  economic  system  is,  how 
intricate  are  its  mechanisms,  how  dependent  society 
is  on  its  harmonious  working,  and  how  well  considered 
must  be  the  reforms  which  shall  rid  us  of  its  evils 
without  involving  all  society  in  chaos  and  disaster. 
When  men  think  as  a  class,  they  never  think  straight, 
whether  they  are  rich  or  poor;  and  the  minister  who 
belongs  to  no  class  but  to  all  classes  ought  to  be 


SOCIAL  ETHICS  195 

trained  so  that  he  shall  be  able  to  keep  a  clear  head 
in  the  turmoil  of  his  generation  and  use  his  influence 
with  his  friends  and  acquaintances — I  do  not  say  in 
the  interests  of  mere  moderation  and  toleration,  but 
in  the  interests  of  fair,  just,  impartial  consideration  of 
the  economic  problems  in  which  so  many  of  our 
modern  questions  of  right  and  wrong  arise.  The 
preacher  who  knows  nothing  of  Marshall  or  Gide 
or  Taussig  or  Ely  or  Hobson  or  Seager,  in  other 
words,  who  has  not  yet  discovered  how  many  of  our 
moral  problems  have  an  economic  root,  may  minister 
in  many  personal  ways  to  his  congregation,  but  can 
have  very  little  part  in  the  pubHc  discussion  of  the 
most  agitating  and  peace-destroying  problems  of  his 
community.  He  cannot  clarify  or  stabiKze  the  think- 
ing of  those  about  him,  for  he  does  not  think 
for  himself,  but  picks  up  his  opinions,  if  he  has  any, 
from  the  class  toward  which  his  sympathies  are 
naturally  drawn.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  forms  his 
own  judgments  and  tries  to  be  the  friend  of  all 
classes,  rather  than  the  advocate  of  one,  he  is  apt  to 
draw  upon  himself  the  fire  of  both  warring  parties  on 
those  occasions  when  passions  are  violently  aroused 
and  so  he  must  be  firmly  grounded  in  the  reasons  for 
his  judgments  if  he  is  to  stand  for  the  larger  view  and 
maintain  the  idea  of  justice  and  liberaHty  against  the 
tyranny  of  mob-opinion. 

The  most  essential  part  of  the  equipment  of  the 
minister  as  social  reformer  is  still  to  be  mentioned. 
His  special  contribution  must  always  be  his  clear, 


196  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

forcible,  and  persuasive  presentation  of  the  Christian 
world-view.  A  religious  reverence  for  human  nature 
is  the  great  driving  power  of  the  only  betterment  of 
the  human  lot  that  has  ultimate  moral  significance — 
I  mean  the  betterment  that  makes  not  merely  for 
more  food,  clothing,  shelter,  and  amusements,  but 
rather  for  more  opportunity  for  the  higher  life  of  the 
mind  and  spirit.  In  all  the  institutions  where  the 
poor,  the  helpless,  the  deficient,  and  the  wicked  are 
cared  for — the  hospitals,  asylums,  reformatories — 
it  has  been  found  that  the  officials  who  have  no 
religious  reverence  for  human  nature,  or  nothing 
corresponding  to  it,  are  apt  to  do  their  work  in  a 
purely  mechanical  way,  and  often  descend  to  down- 
right cruelty  and  brutality.  Look  upon  man  as  a 
mere  animal  who  by  some  happy  accident  has  learned 
to  talk  and  invent  tools  and  machines,  and  so  has 
gained  the  mastery  over  all  other  animals  and  physical 
nature;  look  upon  his  lust,  drunkenness,  laziness, 
and  wickedness  as  natural  instincts  of  which  he  has 
no  reason  to  feel  ashamed;  look  upon  human  life  as  a 
mere  continuance  of  the  animal  struggle  for  existence 
and  as  getting  all  its  significance  from  its  present 
instinctive  satisfactions;  take  the  purely  naturalistic, 
hedonistic,  non-religious  view  of  human  nature — and 
you  cut  the  most  vital  nerve  of  all  the  most  genuine 
social  reform.  All  you  have  left  is  the  class  struggle 
and  the  fury  of  the  have-nots  to  get  possession  of  the 
property  of  those  who  have.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
you  see  in  man  a  spirit  in  the  making;  if  you  construe 


SOCIAL  ETHICS  197 

his  lust,  drunkenness  and  wickedness  as  perversions 
of  natural  instincts  by  means  of  that  very  imaginative 
reason  which  might  have  raised  him  into  a  splendid 
manhood;  if,  in  spite  of  his  history  with  its  wars, 
murders,  and  carnivals  of  corruption,  you  see  through 
all  his  long  evolution  the  struggling  into  Hfe  of  a 
divine  spirit;  if  you  see  in  his  art  and  reHgion  and 
science  and  philosophy  and  literature  and  in  his 
self-sentiment  and  his  self-sacrifice  the  evidences  of  a 
divine  descent  and  the  promise  of  an  immortal 
destiny — then  you  will  feel  a  certain  sacredness, 
even  in  the  lowest  men  and  women;  at  the  sight  of 
perverted  instincts  you  will  be  filled  not  so  much  with 
loathing  and  hatred  (as  the  person  of  merely  aesthetic 
culture  is),  but  rather  with  a  sorrowful  pity;  and 
you  will  hope  for  man's  future  even  when  the  present 
is  dark  and  threatening,  so  sure  will  you  be  that  no 
evil,  physical  or  moral,  can  absolutely  prevent  the 
onward  march  of  the  moral  order.  If  rehgious 
reverence  for  man^s  nature  dies  out,  how  can  we 
generate  the  energy  by  which  reforms  can  be  initiated 
and  carried  into  execution?  The  transformation  of 
society  is  an  arduous,  up-hill  process ;  and  no  energy 
is  dynamic  enough  to  carry  it  on  decade  after  decade, 
in  the  face  of  so  many  tragic  failures,  except  some 
such  reverence  for  human  nature  as  I  have  suggested 
or  as  Carlyle  expresses  in  that  wonderful  old  book 
Sartor  Resartus.     Carlyle  cries: 

To  the  eye  of  vulgar  logic,  what  is  man  ?    An  omnivorous 
biped  that  wears  breeches.    To  the  eye  of  pure  reason,  what  is 


198  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

he?  A  soul,  a  spirit,  and  a  divine  apparition.  Round  his 
mysterious  Me,  there  Hes  under  all  these  wool-rags  a  garment 
of  flesh  (or  of  senses)  contextured  in  the  loom  of  Heaven; 
whereby  he  is  revealed  to  his  like  and  dwells  with  them  in 
union  and  division;  and  sees  and  fashions  for  himself  a  universe, 
with  azure,  starry  spaces  and  long  thousands  of  years.  Deep 
hidden  is  he  under  that  strange  garment;  amid  sounds  and 
colors  and  forms,  as  it  were,  swathed  in,  and  inextricably 
over-shrouded;  yet  it  is  sky- woven  and  worthy  of  a  God. 
Stands  he  not  thereby  in  the  center  of  immensities,  in  the  con- 
flux of  eternities?  He  feels;  power  has  been  given  him  to 
know,  to  believe;  nay,  does  not  the  spirit  of  love,  free  in  its 
celestial  primeval  brightness,  even  here,  though  but  for  mo- 
ments, look  through  ?  Well  said  Saint  Chrysostom,  with  his 
lips  of  gold,  "The  true  Shekinah  is  man":  where  else  is  the 
God's  presence  manifested  not  to  our  eyes  only,  but  to  our 
hearts,  as  in  our  fellow-men  ? 

My  friends,  is  it  not  our  chief  task  as  ministers 
and  reformers  to  preserve  or  rather  to  aw^aken  again 
into  vivid  life  some  such  religious  reverence  for 
human  nature  as  finds  utterance  in  these  famous 
words?  The  world  is  just  beginning  to  recover 
from  a  war  in  which  human  nature  has  revealed 
itself,  no  doubt,  now  and  then,  in  acts  of  the  sub- 
limest  heroism,  but  more  obviously  in  acts  of  passion, 
hatred,  cruelty,  and  greed  which  have  shaken  to  its 
very  foundation  our  old  moral  and  reHgious  ideahsm. 
Nothing  is  more  needed  now  among  milHons  of  suffer- 
ing people  whose  lot  it  has  been  to  see  human  nature 
at  its  worst  than  faith  in  the  power  of  the  human 
spirit  to  shake  itself  free  from  its  horrible  memories 
and  live  again  in  the  light  of  its  visions  and  ideals. 


SOCIAL  ETHICS  199 

And  so  I  end  by  saying  again  that  the  chief  task  of 
the  minister  as  a  social  reformer  is  to  awaken  in  the 
minds  of  the  people  a  religious  reverence  for  human 
nature,  and  the  chief  task  of  the  theological  school 
as  the  institution  which  trains  men  and  women  for 
the  ministry  is,  through  its  biblical  criticism  and  its 
church  history  and  its  theology  and  its  sociology  and 
its  philosophy  and  all  its  systematic  studies,  to 
awaken  in  the  minds  of  its  students  a  vivid,  imagina- 
tive, soul-quickening  realization  of  the  Christian 
world-view  and  a  vision  of  the  righteous  social  order 
which  such  a  world-view  naturally  engenders. 

Robert  James  Hutcheon 


PRESIDENT'S  ADDRESS 


THE  MODERN  MINISTER:    HIS  TRAINING 
AND  HIS  TASK 

We  have  been  listening  during  the  last  three 
days  to  a  series  of  papers  on  some  of  the  elements 
which  enter  into  the  training  of  the  modern  minister. 
We  have  now  come  to  the  closing  session  of  our  formal 
celebration;  and  before  we  separate  I  wish,  in  the 
presence  of  a  more  considerable  company  of  the 
alumni  of  this  School  than  has  gathered  in  Meadville 
for  many  years,  to  take  a  final  bird's-eye  glance  at  the 
various  disciplines  concerning  which  representative 
scholars  have  been  speaking,  and  to  ask  the  bearing 
of  these  disciplines  upon  the  purpose  for  which  the 
School  was  founded  and  the  task  that  is  still  before  it. 

The  object  for  which  the  School  was  founded  was 
the  training  of  ministers  for  the  Unitarian  churches 
of  the  West.  It  is  for  the  graduates  of  the  School 
in  the  pews  before  me,  and  for  the  churches  which 
they  have  served,  rather  than  for  us  who  are  teaching 
here,  to  testify  whether  that  task  has  been  performed 
well  or  ill.  For  the  test  of  the  vocational  school  is 
not  the  learning  of  its  professors  but  the  achievements 
of  its  alumni.  At  our  Fiftieth  Anniversary  a  promi- 
nent part  in  the  celebration  was  taken  by  men  who 
had  known  the  School  from  the  beginning.     There 

200 


PRESIDENTS  ADDRESS  201 

are,  unhappily,  not  with  us  at  this  time  those  who 
can  tell  us  from  personal  knowledge  about  the 
earliest  beginnings  of  the  School.  If  one  who  had 
been  present  when  the  institution  was  founded  had 
slumbered  like  Rip  Van  Winkle  for  the  intervening 
seventy-five  years  and  were  to  inspect  its  curriculum 
today,  he  would,  notwithstanding  the  lapse  of  time, 
find  himself  on  familiar  ground.  We  are  still  engaged 
in  interpreting  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New, 
and  in  teaching  the  Greek  and  the  Hebrew  languages 
in  which  those  testaments  were  written.  We  are 
still  teaching  church  history,  systematic  theology, 
the  construction  of  sermons,  and  the  duties  of  the 
pastorate;  and  a  casual  inspection  of  our  curriculum 
would  indicate  that  these  subjects  constitute  the 
major  portion  of  our  present  task.  We  still  sing 
some,  at  least,  of  the  same  hymns  which  were  sung 
in  1844,  we  meet  daily  for  common  prayer  to  the 
same  God  who  was  worshiped  then,  and  we  still  use 
in  our  classrooms  the  same  Bible  that  was  used  by 
the  young  Frederick  Huidekoper  and  the  young 
Rufus  Stebbins  when  they  began  together,  in  the 
year  1844,  to  expound  the  contents  of  this  book. 
Though  those  of  us  w^ho  are  now  teaching  are  con- 
siderably older,  on  the  whole,  than  the  teachers  of 
that  early  date,  we  still  retain  something  of  the 
enthusiasm  of  youth  and  still  believe  in  the  capacity 
of  religion  to  remake  the  world. 

And  yet  we  are  living  in  a  different  world  today 
from  the  world  of  1844,  and  the  changes  which  have 


202  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

been  going  on  outside  have  had  their  counterpart  in 
the  curriculum  of  the  School.  For  three  things  have 
happened,  since  the  School  was  founded,  of  such 
significance  that  they  have  changed  for  all  time  the 
thought,  the  life,  and  the  spiritual  outlook  of  the 
world.  The  thought  of  the  world  was  transformed 
by  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species.  The  life  of  the 
world  has  been  profoundly  affected  by  the  vast 
social  and  industrial  upheaval  resulting  from  the 
application  of  newly  invented  machinery  to  industry 
and  transportation;  and  the  end  of  this  upheaval  is 
not  yet.  And  finally,  the  spiritual  outlook  of  the 
world  has  been  changed  by  the  world- war.  An 
institution  like  our  own  which  could  pass  through 
these  epoch-making  changes  in  mental  and  moral 
outlook  and  not  be  affected  by  them  would  show  itself 
singularly  insensitive  to  the  times  in  which  it  lives. 
It  was  inevitable,  of  course,  that  the  Darwinian 
theory,  even  if  it  did  not  aboUsh  any  of  the  theologi- 
cal disciplines,  should  have  a  profound  effect  upon 
theological  teaching.  It  created  an  atmosphere  favor- 
able to  the  acceptance  of  the  conclusions  of  the 
higher  critics  of  the  Old  Testament,  even  though 
the  beginnings  of  the  higher  criticism  antedated 
Darwin.  Indirectly,  if  not  directly,  Darwinism 
has  revolutionized  the  teaching  of  history;  and 
there  are  few  theological  schools  in  which  it  has  not 
profoundly  affected  the  teaching  of  doctrinal  theology. 
It  is  difficult  for  us  of  the  present  generation  to  reaHze 
the  violence  and  bitterness  of  the  controversy  of 


PRESIDENTS  ADDRESS  203 

which  the  work  of  Darwin  was  the  cause.  It  was 
impossible  that  the  accepted  account  of  the  origin  of 
the  race  and  the  beginnings  of  reHgion  should  be 
overthrown  without  something  in  the  nature  of  a 
panic  in  the  religious  institutions  which  had  adjusted 
their  teaching  to  this  accepted  account.  But  the 
panic  subsided,  and  for  more  than  half  a  century  the 
necessary  adjustments  to  the  new  situation  have  been 
under  way.  One  of  the  necessary  adjustments  is 
the  introduction  into  the  theological  curriculum  of 
such  subjects  as  the  history  of  religion  and  religious 
education — subjects  which  seventy-five  years  ago 
had  no  part  in  ministerial  training. 

The  social  changes  of  the  last  seventy-five  years 
following  upon  the  industrial  revolution  have  been 
in  some  ways  more  significant  than  the  acceptance  of 
the  Darwinian  theory,  for  they  have  affected  primarily 
the  world's  life  rather  than  the  world's  thought.  Our 
present  industrial  system  had  reached  its  climax 
during  the  years  immediately  preceding  the  founding 
of  this  School.  That  system  was  based  upon  the 
assumption  that  the  highest  welfare  of  the  community 
was  attainable  by  the  unrestricted  pursuit  of  economic 
self-interest;  or,  in  other  words,  of  material  posses- 
sions. The  result  of  the  unrestricted  pursuit  of 
self-interest  has  become  increasingly  famiHar  to  all. 
It  has  concentrated  the  wealth  of  the  world  in  the 
hands  of  a  few,  helped  to  keep  a  considerable  portion 
of  the  population  of  industrial  centers  below  the 
poverty  line,  created  a  sense  of  antagonism  between 


204  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

capital  and  labor,  and  aggravated  a  class  consciousness 
which  has  already  assumed  ominous  proportions. 
It  has  reached  its  highest  point  in  Bolshevist  Russia 
and  is  ominous  of  danger  in  the  most  highly  civilized 
countries  of  the  world.  The  proposition  that  the 
highest  happiness  of  all  can  be  attained  through  the 
pursuit  of  economic  self-interest  was  challenged  in 
ringing  words  within  the  first  decade  after  the  found- 
ing of  this  School  by  England's  greatest  preacher  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  Frederick  Robertson.     He  said, 

Brethren,  that  which  is  built  upon  economic  self-interest 
cannot  stand.  The  system  of  personal  self-interest  must 
be  shattered  to  atoms.  Therefore  we  who  have  observed 
the  ways  of  God  in  the  past  are  waiting  in  quiet  but  awful 
expectation  until  he  shall  confound  this  system  as  he  has 
confounded  those  which  have  gone  before.  And  it  may  be 
effected  by  convulsions  more  terrible  and  bloody  than  the 
world  has  yet  seen.  While  we  are  talking  of  peace  and  of 
the  progress  of  civilization,  there  is  heard  in  the  distance  the 
noise  of  armies  gathering  rank  on  rank;  east  and  west,  north 
and  south,  are  rolHng  toward  us  the  crashing  thunders  of 
universal  war. 

The  challenge  of  Frederick  Robertson  has  been 
repeated  with  increasing  frequency  by  other  Christian 
preachers  who  have  realized  that  the  unrestricted 
pursuit  of  materiaUstic  self-interest  strikes  at  the 
very  root  of  the  gospel  of  Christ.  Very  slowly,  but 
yet  surely,  has  the  church  been  coming  to  realize  the 
futility  of  the  effort  to  Christianize  a  few  souls  here 
and  there  unless  society  can  be  Christianized  at  the 
same  time.    It  has  come  to  see  that  the  life  of  the 


PRESIDENTS  ADDRESS  205 

family  must  be  Christianized  as  well  as  the  life  of 
the  individual,  and  that  the  life  of  the  family  cannot 
be  Christianized  until  economic  conditions  can  be 
created  which  make  decent  family  life  possible.  We 
may  hardly  expect,  however  eloquent  may  be  the 
sermons  which  we  preach,  to  create  the  Kingdom  of 
God  out  of  men  and  women  whose  childhood  has 
been  stunted  by  child  labor.  It  is,  of  course,  as  true 
today  as  it  was  true  seventy-five  years  ago,  that 
society  cannot  be  saved  en  masse  and  that  a  Christian 
society  presupposes  individual  Christians.  But  it 
has  become  increasingly  clear  at  the  same  time  that 
the  church  has  a  mission  to  society  as  well  as  to  the 
individual,  and  that  in  so  far  as  the  church  is  faihng 
to  recognize  that  mission  it  is  losing  its  hold  upon  that 
portion  of  the  community  which  it  can  least  afford 
to  do  without.  We  live  in  the  age  of  the  social 
problem.  Its  watchword  is  social  solidarity.  The 
church  that  has  no  social  gospel  has  no  message  to 
this  time.  The  seminary  which  has  failed  to  adjust 
its  curriculum  to  this  outstanding  fact  is  not  Hving 
in  the  present  century.  I  take  satisfaction  in  calling 
to  mind  the  fact  that  the  Meadville  Theological 
School  was  one  of  the  first  of  the  seminaries  to  intro- 
duce the  study  of  social  ethics. 

We  are  as  yet  too  near  the  events  of  the  world-war 
to  give  a  final  estimate  of  its  influence  upon  religion 
and  the  institutions  of  rehgion.  But  this  much,  at 
least,  is  sure,  that  men  who  thought  before  the  war  in 
national  terms  are  now  thinking  and  speaking  in 


2o6  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

international  terms.  It  is  true  that  the  United 
States  has  not  yet  joined  the  League  of  Nations. 
But  it  is  also  true  that  the  recognition  of  world- 
solidarity  which  the  deliberations  of  Paris  involved, 
went  beyond  the  fondest  dreams  of  any  group  of 
practical  statesmen  before  the  war.  The  ends  of 
the  world  have  been  brought  together  as  they  were 
never  brought  together  before.  The  movement  for 
Christianizing  the  world  that  had  been  going  on  in 
previous  years,  has  received  such  an  impetus  that 
millions  of  dollars  are  being  offered  for  the  purpose 
where  thousands  were  offered  before,  and  the  cry  of 
need  in  the  farthest  part  of  the  world  has  met  with 
such  a  response  as  at  no  other  time  in  history.  World- 
projects  are  in  the  air  today  as  community  projects 
were  in  the  air  yesterday.  It  seems  almost  a  foregone 
conclusion  that  denominational  competition  on  the 
mission  field  will  come  speedily  to  an  end.  The 
World  Church  Movement  has  been  planned  on  a 
scale  previously  unheard  of.  So  disillusioned  have 
the  nations  of  the  world  become  as  to  the  possibility 
of  a  satisfactory  settlement  of  national  disputes  by 
war  that  it  seems  unthinkable  that  humanity  shall 
witness  again  such  an  unspeakable  calamity  as  the 
one  through  which  we  have  lately  passed. 

It  is  scarcely  to  be  expected,  perhaps  not  even  to 
be  desired,  that  national  differences  shall  be  eradi- 
cated as  a  result  of  the  new  international  outlook; 
or  that  religious  differences  which  have  in  the  past 
kept  the  nations  apart  shall  be  forthwith  removed. 


PRESIDENTS  ADDRESS  207 

It  is  reasonable,  however,  to  expect  that  men  will 
learn  in  religion  as  well  as  in  business  that  co-operation 
is  better  than  competition  and  that  love  is  better  than 
hate.  As  the  apocalyptic  hope  of  a  redeemed  Israel 
burst  forth  most  radiantly  when  Israel  sat  by  the 
waters  of  Babylon  amid  the  ashes  of  her  former 
hopes,  so  at  the  present  day  in  the  midst  of  the 
hideous  aftermath  of  war  are  the  nations  of  the  earth 
struggling  to  the  acceptance  of  the  declaration  of  the 
apostle,  that  God  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations 
of  men  to  dwell  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

If  this  declaration  of  the  apostle  represents  a  fact 
and  not  a  fancy  it  may  prove  to  be  the  one  fact  for 
which  the  world  has  been  groaning  and  travailing 
in  pain  together  until  now.  It  may  even  prove  to  be 
a  fact  of  such  transcendent  importance  that  the 
blood  and  treasure  which  have  been  poured  out  like 
water  in  the  last  six  years  have  not  been  utterly 
wasted.  For  it  seems  to  point  to  the  time,  if  that 
time  is  not  already  here,  when  the  church  as  well  as 
the  state  will  embody  in  its  organized  life  the  prin- 
ciple of  human  kinship,  when  the  discordant  notes  of 
our  competing  sects  shall  blend  in  a  great  harmony, 
and  when  men  of  divers  races  and  creeds  who  love 
righteousness  and  are  seeking  to  promote  the  Kingdom 
of  God  shall  again  become  members  of  one  holy 
CathoHc  church,  visible  and  invisible,  the  supreme 
object  of  which  is  the  incarnation  of  the  will  of  God 
in  human  institutions  and  human  lives.  It  is,  of 
course,  inconceivable  that  institutions  which  have 


2o8  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

as  their  aim  the  training  of  ministers  should  be 
unaffected  by  the  emergence  of  a  new  world-attitude 
such  as  this.  It  goes  without  saying  that  it  should 
give  a  new  impulse  in  every  theological  school  to  the 
study  of  missions  and  should  compel  the  creating  of 
departments  of  missions  in  schools  where  they  do  not 
now  exist.  It  has  stimulated  the  exchange  of  theo- 
logical professors  between  institutions  separated  by 
3,000  miles  of  ocean.  It  has  shown  the  triviality  of 
sectarian  distinctions  in  the  face  of  the  work  of 
world-reconstruction  which  is  waiting  to  be  done. 
Before  the  world- war  the  ministerial  training  schools 
of  the  different  denominations  were  much  nearer 
together  than  the  denominations  themselves;  for 
scholarship  knows  no  sectarian  limitations.  And 
these  schools  are  immeasurably  nearer  together  than 
they  were  before  the  war. 

Lest  I  be  accused,  however,  of  special  pleading 
and  of  idealizing  the  kind  of  institution  in  whose  name 
we  have  been  meeting,  let  me  say  that  I  am  painfully 
aware  that  theological  schools  have  their  defects 
as  well  as  their  virtues.  I  have  stated  that  a  super- 
ficial examination  of  the  curriculum  of  this  School 
would  disclose  an  amazing  resemblance  to  the  curricu- 
lum of  seventy-five  years  ago.  And  the  teaching  of 
the  seminary  of  seventy-five  years  ago  was  based 
upon  a  conception  of  divine  revelation  so  much 
narrower  than  the  conception  which  obtains  today 
that  it  may  fairly  be  said  to  have  been  outgrown. 
The  curriculum,  therefore,  of  many  a  seminary  of 


PRESIDENrS  ADDRESS  209 

our  time  is  a  survival  from  the  past  rather  than  a 
response  to  the  needs  of  the  present.  For  what  is 
the  material  studied  in  the  average  seminary,  even 
in  our  own  time?  Is  it  not  in  the  first  place  the 
Greek  and  the  Hebrew  text  of  the  Bible,  presuppos- 
ing years  of  wrestling  with  grammars  and  lexicons  ? 
And  is  it  not  in  the  second  place  the  story  of  the  lives 
of  the  popes  and  the  reformers  and  the  history  of  the 
historic  controversies  over  issues  which  were  once 
debated  with  passion  and  even  with  violence,  but 
which  have  a  very  far-away  sound  at  the  present  time  ? 
And  is  there  not  in  the  third  place  a  vast  variety  of 
subsidiary  material  growing  out  of  these  three 
departments,  in  Semitic  languages  and  exegesis 
and  the  curious  bypaths  of  religious  history  and 
doctrine,  of  interest  to  the  intellectually  curious  but 
without  much  relation  to  the  great  purpose  which 
impels  men  to  become  ministers  of  religion?  For 
it  often  proves  more  diverting  to  a  certain  type  of 
theologian  to  investigate  religion  as  a  phenomenon 
than  to  help  to  set  it  to  work  to  move  the  hearts, 
to  quicken  the  consciences,  and  to  redeem  the  souls 
of  men. 

Suppose,  however,  a  student  is  not  diverted  by 
such  mistreatment  from  his  chosen  calling  but  steps 
from  the  seminary  into  the  church.  And  suppose 
he  tries  to  avail  himself  in  his  preaching  or  in  his 
pastoral  work  of  the  kind  of  knowledge  which  has 
been  poured  in  upon  him.  Is  he  not  bound  to  make 
the  tragic  discovery  that  a  very  large  portion  of  this 


2IO  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

knowledge  is  absolutely  devoid  of  interest  to  the 
people  among  whom  he  has  come?  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  that  is  exactly  the  kind  of  discovery  that  has 
been  made  by  hundreds  of  ministers  of  our  time. 
At  the  end  of  three  or  four  years  of  faithful  study  at  a 
seminary,  they  discover  that  the  people  are  not 
interested  in  the  things  which  they  have  brought 
with  them  from  the  seminary.  And  to  their  intense 
chagrin  they  often  find  that  men  who  have  had  no 
theological  education  at  all  are  preferred  before  them. 
It  is  not  without  significance  that  such  men  as  Joseph 
Parker,  Robert  Collyer,  Edward  Everett  Hale,  and 
Thomas  R.  Slicer  received  their  ministerial  training, 
not  in  the  seminary  but  in  the  school  of  practical 
experience.  And  the  list  of  similarly  successful 
self-made  ministers  might  be  indefinitely  pro- 
longed. 

The  reason  for  the  partial  failure  of  the  seminary 
is  the  vagueness  and  indefiniteness  of  the  thing  it 
has  been  trying  to  do.  Once  there  was  a  fixed  and 
definite  Hne  which  separated  the  secular  from  the 
sacred,  and  it  was  held  that  ministerial  training  was 
concerned  with  the  latter  but  not  with  the  former. 
That  line  at  the  present  time  simply  does  not  exist. 
There  is  no  longer  any  sacred  history,  or  sacred 
literature,  or  sacred  philosophy,  or  sacred  rhetoric. 
The  modern  minister  needs  to  know  human  hearts  and 
interpret  human  needs.  His  field  is  not  primarily 
the  Bible  or  church  history,  but  the  human  soul. 
As  the  physician  needs  to  know  the  body,  so  does  the 


PRESIDENTS  ADDRESS  211 

minister  need  to  know  the  mind  of  man.  No  minis- 
ter in  our  time  is  equipped  for  his  work  without 
a  knowledge  of  religious  psychology  and  reUgious 
education. 

The  training  of  the  physician  has  been  much  more 
definite,  concrete,  and  effective  than  the  training 
of  the  minister.  The  medical  school  has  not  been 
guilty  of  anything  Hke  the  waste  of  time  of  which  the 
divinity  school  has  been  guilty.  From  start  to  finish 
the  medical  teacher  has  been  seeking  to  make  physi- 
cians out  of  his  pupils.  Many  a  theological  professor, 
even  in  our  own  time,  has  not  the  slightest  concern 
as  to  whether  he  shall  produce  a  preacher  and  a 
pastor.  His  concern,  on  the  contrary,  is  his  particular 
specialty;  and  the  colossal  tragedy  of  theological 
teaching  is  that  if  a  man  is  willing  to  do  so  he  may 
teach  so  absorbingly  interesting  a  subject  as  the  Old 
or  the  New  Testament  or  the  history  of  the  Christian 
church  as  if  it  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the 
preaching  of  the  gospel  or  the  salvation  of  a  human 
soul.  Three  years  ago  there  came  a  call  from  France 
to  America  for  two  different  kinds  of  men — products 
of  these  two  different  kinds  of  schools — and  in 
response  to  that  call  the  divinity  school  sent  forth 
chaplains  and  the  medical  school  sent  forth  surgeons. 
Which  of  these  two  t>pes  of  men  had  been  best 
equipped  by  the  institution  which  sent  them  out  for 
their  peculiar  task?  Or,  to  put  the  question  in 
another  way,  which  of  these  two  types  of  men  could 
most    easily    have    dispensed    with    his    vocational 


212  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

training?  I  am  led  to  believe  that  the  American 
chaplains  as  well  as  the  American  surgeons  did  a 
work  in  France  of  which  America  may  well  be  proud. 
But  I  am  compelled  to  harbor  the  suspicion  that 
less  credit  belongs  for  this  work  to  the  school  of 
theology  than  to  the  school  of  medicine.  It  is  much 
for  the  seminary  to  learn  that  its  primary  task  is 
not  the  promotion  of  theological  knowledge  or  the 
correction  of  theological  error  or  the  perpetuation  of 
ecclesiastical  forms,  however  desirable  these  may  be, 
but  the  training  of  students  so  to  preach,  so  to  pray, 
so  to  bring  comfort  to  souls  in  distress  and  hope  to 
souls  in  despair,  so  to  inspire  society  with  the  reHgious 
ideal,  so  to  make  clear  the  religious  import  of  con- 
temporary movements,  and  so  to  make  men  conscious 
of  a  great  reUgious  inheritance,  that  the  institutions 
they  serve  shall  become  an  integral  part  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  and  the  people  to  whom  they 
minister  shall  become  more  fully  conscious  that  they 
are  children  of  God.  I  have  spoken  of  new  theo- 
logical disciplines  which  have  made  their  appearance 
since  this  School  was  founded.  They  have  all  been 
ably  defended  and  need  no  further  defense  from  me. 
But  I  would  not  seem  to  speak  lightly  of  those  other 
disciplines  which  have  held  their  place  in  this  School 
from  its  founding,  and  which  will  hold  an  honored 
place  in  the  future.  Biblical  and  historical  study 
will  continue  to  hold  their  own,  not  because  the 
world  any  longer  believes  in  an  infallible  book  or  an 
infallible  church,  but  because  the  Bible  was  written 


PRESIDENTS  ADDRESS  213 

from  the  point  of  view  of  men  who  believed  from  the 
bottom  of  their  hearts  in  the  overbrooding  love  of 
God,  and  the  history  of  the  church  is  the  history  of 
an  institution  composed  of  men  and  women  who 
were  conscious  of  this  love  and  were  seeking  to  make 
it  a  power  in  human  life.  The  individual  as  well  as 
the  church  is  rooted  in  the  past.  The  minister  who 
would  rally  his  fellow-men  to  the  service  of  God  will 
speak  with  tenfold  power  if  he  is  able  to  show  them 
the  mighty  things  which  God  has  done  in  days  gone 
by.  The  one  thing  that  matters  very  much  to  an 
institution  like  this  is  the  human  soul.  But  all 
subjects  will  be  of  primary  interest  to  it  which 
depict  the  possibilities  of  the  human  soul  when  it  is 
set  on  fire  with  the  consciousness  of  God. 

I  have  been  freer  to  speak  of  the  defects  of  theo- 
logical training  because  I  beheve  that  they  are 
temporary  and  that  they  are  destined  to  disappear 
in  the  face  of  a  fuller  acceptance  of  the  Darwinian 
hypothesis,  the  new  sense  of  human  solidarity,  and 
the  broader  world-outlook  of  our  time.  These 
causes  have  all  contributed  to  a  greater  definiteness, 
a  firmer  sense  of  reality,  and  a  broader  catholicity  in 
the  work  of  ministerial  training.  The  seminaries  of 
America  have  in  recent  years  gained  in  large  measure 
this  definiteness  and  concreteness  by  drafting  into 
their  service  those  sister-institutions  of  learning  in 
which  science,  literature,  philosophy,  economics,  art, 
music,  and  other  subjects  of  study  which  tend  to 
broaden  and  deepen  human  life,  have  found  their 


214  THEOLOGICAL  STUDY  TODAY 

natural  home.  About  the  great  universities  of  our 
country  are  grouped  in  increasing  measure  vocational 
schools  of  every  kind.  It  is  as  futile  to  seek  to 
divorce  theological  study  from  the  university  as  to 
seek  to  divorce  the  study  of  chemistry  from  the 
laboratory.  It  has  been  of  inestimable  advantage 
to  those  seminaries  which  have  been  compelled  to 
do  their  work  in  isolation  from  university  centers,  to 
be  granted,  as  this  School  has  been  granted,  the 
privileges  of  the  university  for  at  least  a  portion  of 
the  year.  For  five  years  this  institution  has  reaped 
the  advantage  of  afiiliation  for  a  quarter  of  the 
school  year  with  the  University  of  Chicago.  That 
privilege  is  now  to  be  extended  to  four  quarters  for 
those  of  our  students  whose  collegiate  training  has 
been  lacking  or  incomplete.  And  it  means  that  the 
possibility  of  raising  the  standard  of  the  School  for 
which  its  friends  have  been  hoping  for  lo!  these  many 
years,  has  finally  come.  Of  all  the  gifts  w^hich  might 
have  been  desired  with  which  to  help  the  rounding 
out  of  our  seventy-five  years,  this  is  the  best. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  minister's  training  and  the 
minister's  task.  I  should  have  liked  to  speak,  had 
time  permitted,  of  the  minister's  opportunity;  for 
I  believe  in  that  opportunity,  in  the  face  of  the  work 
of  reconciliation  that  awaits  the  Christian  church, 
as  I  have  never  beHeved  before.  The  demonstration 
of  the  greatness  of  that  opportunity,  however,  has 
been  and  will  continue  to  be  an  affair,  not  of  words, 
but  of  deeds.    It  has  been  given  for  many  years  by 


PRESIDENTS  ADDRESS  215 

those  who  have  received  their  training  here  and  have 
carried  the  results  of  that  training  to  the  world 
outside.  It  is  the  proud  privilege  of  the  School 
today  to  set  the  seal  of  its  approval  upon  the  work  of 
some  of  these. 

Franklin  Chester  Southworth 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Libraries 


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